The new school year is upon us, which means it’s time to start planning for how students will get to and from school in the coming months.

According to Transportation Director John Flynn, Fountain Hills Unified School District has changed things up quite a bit in that department, with new bus routes and online tools aimed at making sure parents and students are able to plan travel more easily than ever before.

For starters, you can find the 2017-18 bus route in this week’s edition of The Times. It’s also available with pick-up and drop-off times at fountainhillsschools.org/transportation.

If you’re used to looking at previous bus routes, you’ll notice some changes right off the bat this time around. Routes are listed in zones, for instance, grouping the town into more manageable sections. Pick up spots may have shifted around in certain areas and, due to Four Peaks Elementary School being absorbed into the Middle School, some pick-up times have changed.

More importantly, though, Flynn said he’s excited for parents to get to use the district’s new routing tool, which should be live on the website listed above as of this printing. In short, parents can simply plug in their address and see exactly where the closest pick-up spots are for their kids.

“Due to capacity and other issues we had to, for the first time anyone here can remember, look at totally redesigning the routes,” Flynn said.

Flynn said his staff relied on historical data and input from parents and other stakeholders to guide the revision process, resulting in some pretty dramatic changes.

“The route names will be familiar to everybody and are generally located in the same geographical areas they’ve been in the past,” Flynn added. “But in terms of the actual routes, stops, pick-up and drop-off times, they have changed entirely.

“It’s really critical that people understand that and take the time to look that information up.”

As noted above, folks can rely on the printed version of the routes. For ease of use and additional planning, though, Flynn said that the electronic, interactive version of the route will be a huge help for parents.

“It shows all of the stops on the route for your zone and you can just pick which one you want,” Flynn said, adding that FHUSD still uses an open route policy that allows students to ride whichever bus they prefer.

“You can pick a stop that’s in your zone or even drop your kids off at a stop you prefer while on your way to work,” Flynn added. “You click on the stop, and it will give you the cross streets, the corner where the bus will stop, the pick-up time and the drop-off time. It’s really neat.”

Flynn said that he believes the interactive route option should help parents find their best transportation options with ease.

“All you need to know is your address and it does the rest,” he added.

For those living in areas not near a route, Flynn said they will receive information about how to get their kid added to a “sweep route,” extra buses that pick up students on the fringe of town. Also, parents with students with special needs need to contact the District Office directly at 480-664-5000. Flynn said that, once the groundwork has been established, the driver will contact the parent directly to establish a more direct relationship with the family and work out information about routing.

As in years past, pre-school students, students who need to travel between schools and students who need to go to and from the local Boys & Girls Club will be accommodated. Flynn said his goal is to create routes and options that make transportation as accessible as possible for local students.

Flynn went on to say that parents should remember to get their kids to stops at least five minutes early but, otherwise, his staff will take care of the rest.

“I anticipate questions and suggestions to come with these changes, and we’ll do everything we can to accommodate everyone,” Flynn said. “Last year, we completed 4,136 trips for the school district…We transported more than 170,000 students to and from school. We transported another 3,400 students for sporting events throughout the state.

“We traveled last year 238,000 miles; almost the distance from here to the moon. We did that with one incident and no injuries to students and staff…We want people to know that we’re proud of what we do and, most importantly, we do it safely.”

Flynn also noted that the Transportation Department and its fleet is inspected by DPS annually.

“For three consecutive years we’ve had no marks against us, and we are the only district in the state to accomplish something like that,” he said. “That’s 50 vehicles with no red marks.”

Flynn can be reached directly at 480-664-5310 or by email at jflynn@fhusd.org.