More students to benefit from Get on Board program

The expansion of the "Get on Board" program will serve about 200 more students who attend August Ahrens Elementary, Highlands Intermediate, Pearl City High and Waipahu High schools.

News Release from Hawaii DOE 15-Oct-2013

HONOLULU –The Hawaii State Department of Education (DOE) announced today its "Get on Board" student bus transportation pilot is expanding.

The pilot initiative restored service to about 350 students at the beginning of the school year. Beginning in November, the DOE will start the second "Get on Board" phase to serve about 200 more students from August Ahrens Elementary, Highlands Intermediate, Pearl City High and Waipahu High.

"Like the inaugural phase of Get on Board, this second phase is being offered at no additional cost to our families," said Ray L’Heureux, assistant superintendent of the DOE’s Office of School Facilities and Support Services.  "With the use of the computerized software, we’re able to continue gathering data that is going to be important in our ongoing transportation reform efforts."

For this second phase of Get on Board, the DOE is working with contractor Tomasa Bus and will for the first time use a "Transfinder" computerized software to determine bus stop times and route directions.

The Get on Board initiative is a multi-year, multi-phased commitment by the DOE to reform its public school student bus transportation system. It kicked off on the first day of school August 5 and has been serving students at 32 schools who ride buses in the Aiea, Moanalua, Pearl City, Radford and Waipahu High complex areas. For these routes and other routes in the pilot area, the DOE worked with its other participating bus contractors Ground Transportation, Inc. and Gomes Bus Lines, whose buses feature GPS tracking.
The restoration of the additional routes in November increases total ridership in the Get on Board pilot area to approximately 4,000 students, and represents a significant step toward full statewide program implementation over the next two school years.

In June 2012, the DOE announced more than 100 bus routes were being eliminated statewide due to rising costs and a loss of funding. Since then, the DOE has streamlined services and restored a number of the routes, and also contracted Management Partnership Services (MPS) to conduct a study of Hawaii’s student bus transportation system.  Earlier in the year, Gov. Abercrombie signed into law two State Senate bills that give the DOE more flexibility in how it awards its bus contracts. 

Letters informing parents of the second phase of the Get on Board initiative are being mailed this week to those school communities. Student riders must be registered to receive the bus service. The DOE has established a Get on Board Call Center at 206-7936; e-mail: getonboard@hawaiidoe.org. Additional updates are posted on the DOE’s website at http://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/BeyondTheClassroom/Transportation/Pages/Home.aspx.

The Hawaii State Department of Education is the ninth largest U.S. school district and the only statewide educational system in the country. It is comprised of 288 schools and serves more than 185,000 students. Hawaii’s public school system was established in 1840 by King Kamehameha III. To learn more, visit HawaiiPublicSchools.org.

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