DeKalb schools working on plan in case bus drivers strike

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Administrators with DeKalb Schools are continuing to work on contingency transportation plans in case drivers with the busing company the district uses vote to strike today.

Representatives from Teamsters Local 330 indicated to district officials late Wednesday night that school bus drivers affiliated with that union local will provide service to DeKalb students on Thursday but cannot guarantee service after that date unless an agreement is reached with First Student Inc., according to a written statement from the district.

Messages left with some DeKalb drivers were not immediately returned Thursday. A public relations official with First Student said she needed to find out more about the situation before commenting. Teamsters Local 330 in Elgin declined to comment.

As of noon today, there were no new updates, school district spokesman Russ Fletcher said. Any information the district learns will be shared with parents as it is learned, he said, both through the district's Web site, www.dist428.org, and the district's parent phone notification system.

School would be open if the drivers do strike, he added.

The district is working in a number of ways to provide replacement transportation service, Fletcher said. That would be done by working with First Student or utilizing other bus companies, but he said that some families may have to consider the possibility of carpooling until the district could find a more permanent solution.

Some of the nearly 100 bus drivers in the district voted in late February to join the Elgin-based Teamsters Local 330 labor union. Employees, whose services are contracted through First Student, transport students to and from the district’s 12 schools.

At that time, Ellen Klenke, who was one of five DeKalb bus drivers spearheading the unionization, told the Daily Chronicle that the group had filed the necessary paperwork with the federal government and was in the process of electing officers to to work with the union to draw up the first contract.

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