Morgan Schools Busing Detours

McCONNELSVILLE, Ohio – State Route 376 just north of Stockport has been closed since July due to a landslide.  

The closure creates a major obstruction for busing students from the southern part of the county to the countywide high school and junior high. Another challenge for a school system looking for ways to tighten their budget. 

“We’re really proud of our transportation director and our drivers. They’ve really stepped up to find the courses and the best ways to get kids safely where they need to be. And again, it’s been a collaborative effort working together to make sure that this is not a large delay or a large problem for Morgan Local Schools,” Morgan Local School District Superintendent Greg Gifford said.

The busing detour routes convoys of buses across some very dilapidated roadways in order to minimize out-of-route mileage and maintain time scheduling as efficiently as possible. 

“Again that collaboration of working together, I mean we’ve found a couple of alternate routes to get us where we need to be,” Gifford said. “Again, our drivers have really stepped up in a big way. For us, it’s added about 18 minutes of transportation time. Again through that collaboration and efforts, you know it really hasn’t delayed our start of the school day or our buses being picked up at the end of the day and for our transportation team, it’s added about a hundred miles of extra travel a day.”

Gifford says the school district is doing its best to make the most out of a tough situation and applauded the transportation team for how they’ve stepped up in providing solutions that have addressed last minute challenges.