The parent of a Prairie View student says that the district provided bus service for only two months out of the nine month school year that ended in May. (Wix file photo)
By Roger Sims, rsims@linncountyjournal.com
LA CYGNE – A dead-end road, fencing that is close to the road, a tight driveway, and a muddy spring led to an appeal by a parent to the Prairie View school board to resolve issues concerning bus service for her child.
However, the woman who drives the bus has said that the road, the driveway and a bus that’s nearly 43 feet long make picking up the student next to impossible without driving into the parent’s yard.
Laura Covell of rural Parker told the school board that her student had only been picked up at her residence for two months of the nine-month 2023-24 school year. Covell lives east of Parker on a deadend road that intersects with County Road 1077 (West 2100 Road).
“I’m hoping for a resolution before school starts,” she said during the citizens’ open forum.
As expected, the board and Superintendent Chris Johnson listened attentively to her complaint but did not comment except to thank her.
Covell told the board that she had requested bus service at the beginning of the school year last August but that service wasn’t provided to her house until after spring break in mid-March.
At that point, the bus began picking her student up every morning for school.
In a separate interview following the board meeting, Jamie Wilson, a 28-year bus driving veteran for Prairie View also trains novice drivers for the district, said that the heavy rains in late April soaked Covell’s front yard, which she was using to turn the bus around.
The bus made ruts in the soaked ground and Covell erected a single strand fence to keep the bus driver from using the yard.
Wilson said that without that area to turn around, providing service to the residence was impossible, so bus service ceased for the remainder of the school year. She said the gravel road was too narrow, the driveway wasn’t wide enough and the fence opposite the home was too close to the road.
Covell said that the Linn County road department widened the gravel road and told her that it met national specifications. She also said that a brush pile and fence posts had been moved to make access to the driveway easier.
Wilson said that she offered to pick up the student at the intersection with County Road 1077 but was told that was too inconvenient.
Wilson said that about half of the students she picks up meet the bus at the end of a road or at an intersection.
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