We hear you. Believe me when I say that navigating this community could frustrate the most veteran NASA specialist. For many of us, a trip to the moon might even seem less stressful, because if nothing else, I’ve never seen orange cones or frenzied motorists when watching any of the Apollo movies.
As you might imagine, our transportation staff has had a very challenging first full week of school. Thank you for understanding that the volume of phone calls made it difficult to immediately respond to all inquiries. While that isn’t unusual for a high volume of calls to arrive at the start of any school year, this year’s volume was significantly higher and made it impossible to provide callers with the level of customer service that we strive to provide. Despite a considerable amount of planning, new director Scott Brooker and his staff couldn’t have anticipated that a storm would uproot trees and place them in the middle of the one roadway available to detour the construction. I checked with transportation secretary Heather Hawk before I sat down to write this message, and she calmly, as always, shared that she had returned almost all the calls and messages that were still on her Friday “to do” list She also encouraged me to include her email address (heather hawk@springfield-schools .org) for anyone experiencing a non-emergency need and a promise that emailing truly is the best way to receive a timely response.
Springfield Township administrator (and Springfield High School grad) Mike Hampton is doing his part to keep us informed on the progress being made and anticipated timelines for “business as usual” to return to our roadways. We look forward to gaining access again to many of the streets that will reduce the time that students must spend on the bus. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience and support. We are all in this together–and are beyond hopeful that the challenges of getting to and from our schools become more than 238,900 times easier to navigate. Sooner rather than later.
