INSIDE
Gilbert real estate section FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF GILBERT) | GilbertSunNews.com
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
Sunday, September 15, 2019
GPS busing improves, but cost remains high
INSIDE
This Week
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
NEWS..................................
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Indicted EVIT chief keeping job.
BUSINESS........................
Desert Ridge student band honors military PAGE 24
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New Gilbert clinic focuses on autism
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fter six years of driving a bus for Gilbert Public Schools, Conrad Stucky is finally seeing improvements for student transportation. “It’s more orderly,” Stucky said. “The way they do it is more efficient.” With bell times and other changes at the start of this school year, the district went from 66 percent of all elementary buses running late daily to 3 percent, according to Paul Novak, GPS interim transportation director. For years the district struggled with chronically late buses or no-shows with stranded students.
Every school day bus drivers are tasked with moving 10,000 students in 70 minutes. The district is taking a number of steps to overhaul how it transports students – primarily implementing the new bell schedule. Most recently, the GPS Governing Board gave pay raises and bonuses to bus drivers in hopes of improving retention rates. They district purchased new transportation routing software prior to the first day of school. “Students are arriving on time,” board President Reed Carr said at last week’s board meeting. “We’re freeing up resources, being more efficient so we can put those resources into the classroom, where they belong.” Instead of nine different start-and-end times at 40 campuses, there is now only
three – one each for high schools, junior highs and elementary schools. Novak acknowledged problems in the first week of school included late pickups and overcrowded buses. One student reportedly was dropped off at the wrong stop. “The start of the school year was anything but smooth,” Novak said. “But we’ve been able to quickly make corrections to improve morning arrival times, afternoon dismissals, high-load counts with required overflow bus services and various other shortcomings we experienced at the beginning.” He said the global positioning system the board approved 18 months ago performs better than expected and helps staff to de-
Gilbert small businesses get Ready for play break on health insurance
see BUSES page 11
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
GETOUT.........................
French macaroons kitchen finesse.
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require
COMMUNITY..................... 20 BUSINESS.............................24 OPINION.............................. 28 SPORTS................................ 30 GETOUT................................35 CLASSIFIED........................ 39
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ric Reber opened his large-format printing studio near McQueen and Guadalupe roads in Gilbert seven years ago. The Mesa resident has grown SpeedPro from two to four employees but the thing that has remained elusive is his ability to offer health benefits to his workers. “It’s absolutely definitely an issue that we can’t do that or offer it low enough for people,” said Reber, who is on his wife’s insurance plan through Gilbert Public Schools. “It’s difficult to find employees unless they had a spouse or are young enough to be on their parents’ plan. I’ve lost out on opportunities to hire people because of that fact.” Reber isn’t the only small-business owner in this predicament.
see CHAMBER page 6
The first phase of Gilbert's long-awaited regional park will be opening with fanfare next Saturday. Though only 30 acres of the 272-acre park will be ready, there will be plenty of things for kids to do - such as the longest slide in Arizona. For the full rundown and a look at opening festivities, see page 3. (Kimberly Carrillo/GSN Staff Photographerr)
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