Will County Gazette

The Beecher school board recently received an update on the district's transportation department, and hired a new full-time employee.

During the Dec. 12 board of education meeting, Beecher 200U received an update on the transportation department from Kelly Flannery, the new transportation supervisor who previously worked as a bus driver for the district for six years. She gave the highlights of how the district was doing, saying they were better off than a lot of schools that were struggling to get drivers and even cancelling routes.

Flannery explained that her promotion to supervisor meant leaving her full time position as bus driver and at the same time another full-time driver moved down to part-time. At the time of her presentation, the department had 25 employees with 13 drivers, three sub drivers, and six monitors among others. They have 15 total routes, nine being strictly Beecher routes.

"One of the things that I know is ... on everybody's mind is we need busses. We always need busses," Flannery said. "I mean, look through our fleet. Originally we were thinking that we'd like to get a little bus and Jim and I were talking and we decided we really need to get another 77-passenger school bus, which is very similar to the one that we just got ... and that's the one we use for KCC. And so I think that would be highly beneficial.

Kelly also reported that she had recently hired some part-time employees and monitors, so she felt good about the number of drivers available, even though they have two routes that are not technically completely covered.

The board voted at the meeting to hire Dennis Finnegan as a full-time driver from his position as part-time driver.