LSC: ‘Domino effect’ compounds ‘frustrating’ new bus system, new schedule

Plus, county health board endorses push to make health officer a full-time position

• Today’s edition is sponsored by Duke Energy, shining a light on The Farm at Prophetstown and its newly renovated and dedicated windmill. The Farm at Prophetstown held a ribbon-cutting Thursday for the windmill, first constructed in the 19th century and once again up and running with help from grants from the Duke Energy Foundation and the Community Foundation of Greater Lafayette. The property depicting life on a 1920s-era farm will use the windmill to show how they were essential to daily life and how farmers used them to harness the power of wind to grind wheat, pump water or operate sawmills. Learn more about the Farm at Prophetstown by going to prophetstown.org/

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LSC: ‘DOMINO EFFECT’ COMPOUNDS ‘FRUSTRATING’ NEW BUS SYSTEM

An update on the rollout of Lafayette School Corp.’s new schedule and transportation system …

Les Huddle, Lafayette’s school superintendent, said Thursday that school officials worked Wednesday night and through Thursday to work out first-day kinks in the district’s new, three-tier transportation system that had some buses running more than an hour late on the first day of classes and had parents promising to unload at next week’s LSC school board meeting.

“Even if you’re on a single tier (bus system), you’re going to have some bumps with transportation, generally, on the first day of school,” Huddle said Thursday, a day after he’d called the rollout of LSC’s new system “unacceptable.” “Things just had a domino effect on Wednesday. … We’re working to smooth it out.”

LSC shifted from two start/dismissal schedules to three for the 2024-25 school year in hope of dealing with a shortage of bus drivers and chronic late arrivals at school. The deal wasn’t a particularly popular one heading into this week’s first day. How Wednesday went had parents and teachers clenching up.

Here’s more on how the new schedule and bus system came about, including the fallout that followed this summer from teachers not pleased by longer school days that didn’t come with renegotiated contracts for more pay: “LSC off to ‘unacceptable’ start with new bus schedule.”

Huddle said the system stacked things up on Wednesday, piling on late arrivals in particular from Sunnyside Intermediate School, LSC’s school with all the district’s fifth- and sixth-graders and the one with a new 4:05 p.m. dismissal time. That’s the latest in LSC’s new three-tier system.

Huddle said the latest bus got to Sunnyside to pick up students at 5:25 p.m. Wednesday – 80 minutes after the final bell at the school.