was live at Palm Valley Academy that's
one of the new schools opening this year
to deal with the rapid growth in st.
John's hey guys so it is shiny it is new
and it is ready for hundreds of students
to walk through those doors you know as
you mentioned this is a growing district
a booming district everybody wants to
move here the district needs to build 20
new schools over the next ten years they
have projected the district will grow by
fifteen thousand students in that time
we're talking forty-seven percent and
right now there are forty schools to
accommodate those close to forty
thousand students so again we are live
at Palm Valley Academy this school was
service school students in knockety and
you see that they are quiet but we know
things are going to ramp up we were able
to talk to the principal about what she
expects and we'll hear from her in just
a minute but last year the
superintendent said that the district
added nearly two thousand students and
that growth is not stopping Saint Johns
County residents have foot at some of
the bill for that growth passing that
half cent sales tax referendum that was
back in 2015 that is expected to
generate some money thirteen million
dollars per year for the next ten years
we also talked with the st. Johns County
Sheriff's Office in northern Saint
John's as you were talking about seeing
the most growth they're like anywhere
from any given month they could see as
many as five hundred to a thousand new
people moving into this area and as we
were traveling through the county today
we saw a lot of signs up encouraging
people to slow down knowing that all
those buses will be back there on the
roads kids will be crossing the
crosswalks and Jennifer ready was at the
bus depot earlier today at some of those
buses were pulling out good morning
right now we are inside the dispatch
command center of sorts and they are
really busy this morning a lot of buses
are already out on their routes joining
us now is our Pantano the director of
transportation here tell us a little bit
about what's going on here and how the
dispatch center works all right so this
is the nerve center for all our school
bus operations our dispatchers are
behind us here they're tied in with
consoles
that are monitoring the buses both your
communication as well as GPS technology
over my shoulder here so we're in
constant communication with this with
the buses we're in constant
communication with the schools
parents parents are calling in here all
that interaction is synergized here and
then we we do what we have to do to take
appropriate measures and countermeasures
to what's going on so this system here
is called zone R it's the GPS system
that that's on all of our school buses
and so we're monitoring a whole lot of
things on the bus but in particular
exactly what their location is again
within three feet in ten seconds this is
a it's a huge asset to us because it
really if a bus for example a bus breaks
down we know exactly where that bus is
we can quickly run a report on this and
see what buses are in proximity of that
bus and that helps us to decide which
bus is best the posture to respond and
get in there and get the children where
they need to go so in st. Johns County
has seen a lot of growth in recent years
how do you guys handle that on your end
well it's challenging obviously as I
indicated earlier we've added twenty
four routes in the last two years that's
if you look over the last decade that's
tremendous growth for us a challenge for
us is is to keep our fleet modernized
that's that's the equipment that moves
the children the needs to operate these
buses not just anyone can operate a
school bus so the available population
of qualified people is finite and so
we're constantly recruiting but there's
never a time when we're not recruiting
operators once you get an operator then
you got to get them in here we've got to
train them there's a lot of time and an
investment there to get them up to the
standards that we need so it's it's a
challenge we have to stay ahead of it
the biggest challenge for us is the
people part because you need the
qualified operators to get the children
to and from school if you don't have
those people there the tip of the spear
and my vernacular and if we don't have
them out there doing their job we can't
we can't accomplish the task so I'll
thank you so much for joining us and
coming up we're gonna check in with
parents and students on the first day of
school
Jennifer ready channel for the local
station
all right Jennifer thank you so we are
back here at live at Palm Valley Academy
we're starting to see the teachers
arrive the school bell rings at 8:30
today so we'll start to see those
students arriving probably within the
next hour now we went inside of the
school and we talked with the principal
and she just really has a beautiful
mindset of how she wants every single
person to feel as they walk into this
school also talked about how they're
gonna try to get students to remain calm
to be kind to each other and then also a
top four before sorry a top floor view
that she says it's absolutely amazing
we're going to show that to you
coming up at 7:30 and then we certainly
will see those students as they walk
into this brand-new school
excited for that first day we are live
in st. Johns County we're gonna send it
back to you Bruce and Stacy