MONTICELLO — With school officially out for the summer, as students attended their last day of class Wednesday, the wheels on the bus will get a break from going round and round.
Joe Kounkel, general manager of the Hoglund Transportation school bus company, gave a presentation to the Monticello School Board recently, offering a year-in-review look back at transportation within the district over the 2023-24 school year.
Kounkel said his fleet of buses drives about 3,000 miles each day for its regular routes, not including trips.
A total of 54 vehicles are used each day, with 53 drivers behind the wheel performing morning and afternoon routes, he said, noting that some drivers need to come back to switch vehicles between routes. There are also 13 drivers that handle midday routes, Kounkel said.
Hoglund goes through about 10,000 gallons of diesel gas every four weeks, he said.
The month of May was particularly busy for field trips, Kounkel said, noting that the largest trip day was on May 15, when there were 21 different field trips and athletic trips. The next day was practically just as busy, with 20 trips, he said.
Kounkel also recognized the youth apprenticeship program, which supplied one intern during the 2023-24 school year.
He could not say enough good things about the most recent intern to complete the program, Monticello High School graduating senior Joe Gleason.
“He has changed the culture at our office,” Kounkel said. “He’s a high school senior that is not on his phone. He comes to work, changes into his uniform, he looks good, he does what he’s supposed to do every day. And when our older people see that in our office or in our shop, they work harder. They did it because an 18-year-old is out working.”
Kounkel said Gleason will be going off to further his education in the industry in Detroit Lakes, where Minnesota State Community and Technical College offers a diesel equipment technology program.
He’ll be getting some help with tuition from Hoglund, assuming that he comes back to work for the company after getting his degree.
“We always make our interns a deal that, if they want to go to college, we’ll pay for it,” Kounkel said. “For every year I pay for, you come back and work for us one year after you graduate.”
Kounkel said two new interns will be joining the team for the 2024-25 school year.
He also recognized a rather unique aspect to Hoglund’s team: “We have one of two female school bus mechanics in the country,” he said, referring to employee Megan Bruzek.
Kounkel also gave an overview of some of the impressive technology that Hoglund uses.
“We have GPS and speed (tracking) located on every one of our buses,” he said.
This allows managers to see how fast each bus is traveling, along with when and where it has stopped.
“We get a lot of calls like ‘Hey, that bus is on two wheels! It goes by our house so fast every day,’ and we can look on here and say, ‘OK, well that whole trip they went 53 miles an hour max’ or ‘This is where the bus is right now; the bus never stopped.’”
“As long as you call us when that bus is out there we can say ‘Yep, it did stop and it stopped at this time.’ That is probably one of our biggest benefits to having our GPS and speed because that is some of the complaints that we used to get a lot, that ‘oh, the bus never stopped.’ When you have GPS, it’s hard to deny that it did stop or what the speed is going.”
He also explained the current camera technology on board the fleet, which includes four 4K HD cameras in every bus, along with a stop-arm camera.
These include audio equipment that picks up the sounds of most everything going on inside the bus.
“If we want to listen to the kids in the back of the bus talking, (or) we want to listen to the kids in the middle of the bus talking or wherever, you can hear it all,” he said. “You can hear the bus driver talking to the parent outside the door; it’s very, very clear.”
The stop-arm camera is there to help catch drivers who disobey the law and don’t stop for school buses with flashing lights and stop arms extended. This tool helps schools and law enforcement find the violators and hold them accountable.
“We’ve had 152 stop-arm violations this year already, and that’s the ones that we can catch,” he said. “That’s not counting the ones that are going so fast that you didn’t even catch them on the video.”
Wright County sends warnings or tickets to these violators, he said, and the penalty is harsh.
“The penalty is $500 and a loss of license for a year,” he said. “It’s a pretty steep penalty.”
In addition, Kounkel said Hoglund has permission from the State Patrol and Wright County to post photos of these violators on Facebook, after blocking out their license plates.
Kounkel said Hoglund is already making plans for the next school year.
The company, which has served the Monticello School District since its inception in 1947, recently inked a new contract to continue as the district’s student transportation provider through 2029.
Most Popular
Comments / 0