Transportation Department: The Heart and Soul of our District

Welcome to the Vail School District Transportation Department web site. You have accessed the web pages of an organization which has the single minded goal of transporting everyone safely. As illustrated in our mission statement, we take this responsibility very seriously.

Two major programs help ensure student safety. One is our training program which is totally run from within our Department. The other is the usage of digital cameras with audio and infrared capabilities on all of our large buses. The cameras provide drivers, monitors, and students fair and impartial treatment should questionable actions occur.

Access to this web site provides an educational and informational tool for Students, Parents, and District Staff. Additionally, we hope to highlight the Transportation Department and provide insights into the complexities of transporting over 5,000 students every day. Finally, many of the pages on this site will provide links to additional safety resources for Parents.

Ultimately, we hope you will gain a better understanding of the challenging world of Student Transportation. What many see as a simple movement of students is, in reality a complex often convoluted Transit Management System.

Our regular routes travel nearly 1.8 million miles every school year.

During any given school year we will transport 97% of the entire student enrollment of the Vail School District at one time or another.

Our Maintenance shop maintains the operational status of nearly 200 vehicles, lawn mowers, pick up trucks, fork lifts, a box truck, and a couple of tractors. As you will see in the Maintenance section - no one moves in this District without the efforts of the fleet maintenance personnel.

We operate 41 regular routes for student transportation. These routes are made up 208 separate “runs”. A “route” is made up of a number of “runs”. Runs constitute regular student transport, zero hour (one hour before high school starts), kindergarten, pre-school, and late (after school) activity runs.

A regular route driver starts his or her day at 4:45 and may not end their day until 8:00PM. Our drivers are only paid for the hours that they are actually driving or “pre-tripping” their vehicles.

The “pre-trip” inspection consists of a 70 point inspection of a vehicle which MUST be done every single time a bus is being readied for a “run”.

We operate 19 vehicles for children with special needs. This portion of our operation transports 240 students from their front door step to school and back.

We have students who attend Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind (ASDB). This route transports students from within our District to the campus of ASDB and back home. This route alone covers nearly 320 miles every day.

Your Transportation Department transports students (on average) 290 days out of every year. This means we are operating on weekends and during all of the District breaks.

This is just a preliminary listing of the types of information which you will find in this web site. You will find that the 98 people who currently constitute the staff of this Department, are extremely proud of what they do. They are prouder still of the professional manner in which they perform their jobs.

Transportation Contacts:

Main office

879-2497

“How May We Help You?”

Director of Facilities & Transportation:

Al Flores 879-2050

floresa@vail.k12.az.us

Transportation Supervisor:

John V Nunes 879-2454

nunesj@vail.k12.az.us

Dispatch/Information:

Shannon Hernandez