"It's a very hard thing knowing that my little ones are not going to get to school as fast as they should, but my parents on my bus know this was coming. "I absolutely love my students, I consider every one of them one of my kids," Paglia said. The bus drivers outside Whitcomb stressed that it was a difficult decision to go on strike, knowing that they would put parents and students in a difficult situation. If you get into a school bus and the emergency brake doesn't work, or the seats are falling apart, or the lights don't work, it's not safe for the kids and we want them to make things safe." "We care about the kids the most, we want them to be safe. "We have buses that have been written up five, six times, because there are problems with them, we don't want to drive these buses, they are not safe for the children," Paglia said. Paglia added that there are additional concerns about bus safety that NRT hasn't addressed. "Big bus drivers just want to maintain their raise, they aren't making any more," Willoughby said. They are pinching our hours I was at 30 hours and now I'm at 24, and that brought me down below what I was making before the pandemic," Paglia said. "We got our raise, but they cut our hours. As a "big" bus driver, she did get a raise in January but said that raise coincided with her hours being cut. "Similar to snowy mornings we expected some students would be tardy," Murphy said.ĭonna Paglia is another bus driver who was outside Whitcomb school on Monday morning. Murphy said that teachers and students were prepared for a delayed opening to the start of school, since students would be coming in well after the first bell, citing the arrivals being similar to winter days with bad weather. Marlborough School District: Official maps of walking route to the district that are staffed Murphy said that 83% number is 87% of what typical attendance is for Marlborough Public Schools, which suggests that approximately 13% of all students were unable to attend school due to the bus strike. Marlborough Superintendent Mary Murphy told the Daily News that approximately 83% of students were present in class on Monday. What we know about the absentee rate on Monday While the Teamsters represent bus drivers in all three communities, each contract is negotiated separately, which is how Framingham avoided a strike, while Marlborough and Westborough are still waiting on deals to be signed. The drivers are part of Teamsters Local 170, which represents bus drivers and monitors in Framingham, Marlborough and Westborough, and their dispute is with NRT, the North Reading-based vendor that is contracted by the districts to provide school busing.Īn agreement was reached on Sunday evening to avoid a strike in Framingham and Westborough school bus drivers are not yet striking but an agreement on that contract has not been reached. The 55 school bus drivers who work in Marlborough Public School District began striking Monday morning. We will be working to improve traffic around all schools." Please follow the plans provided to you by your child’s school for arrival and dismissal procedures. "Thank you to all of you that helped get our children to school this morning! I am sorry to report that we have been notified the strike will continue. Marlborough Superintendent Mary Murphy announced to parents Monday night the strike will continue on Tuesday and they will again be responsible for getting their children to school. "We just got nothing, usually we are $2 per hour away from the big bus drivers, they were $26 per hour and we were $24 per hour, and now they are up at $34 and we are way down there still." Strike will continue into Tuesday "We are frustrated we are not getting a fair wage, NRT refuses to give us a fair wage, the City of Marlborough gave the big bus drivers an $8 per hour raise, up to $34 per hour, we were left at the bottom of the totem pole," Willoughby. Willoughby said part of the contention in the negotiating is that while drivers of large school buses were given a raise, drivers of smaller vehicles and monitors were not given a similar raise. ![]() ![]() View Gallery: PHOTOS: Marlborough school bus drivers on strike and picketingīus drivers were outside Whitcomb Middle School in Marlborough Monday morning, wearing signs supporting a school bus driver strike.Ĭarol Willoughby, a Marlborough resident who drives a small bus for special needs students, is on the negotiating team for the drivers.
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