Greg McCormick shows school board member safety features. (Aaron Bolton, KSTK News)
Wrangell’s school board took a look at a new school bus during its meeting Monday. The bus replaces an older model that’s now retired.
Part owner of Etolin Bus Company, Greg McCormick, highlighted several safety features as the board took a look.
“It has a system that does a whole self of all the activities on the bus. You’ll see it here in just a second,” said McCormick as the lights began to flash and crossing arm extended.
The crossing arm forces students crossing in front of the bus to walk where the driver can see them. The bus also has several cameras on board, two on the students and one on the driver. There is also a dash cam that takes pictures of any vehicles that run through the bus’s stop sign.
Etolin owners, Greg and Carrie McCormick, have a contract with the district for busing students. Currently they operate three buses for the district. All are operated during the summer for tours of Wrangell.
The board elected new board member Georgianna Buhler as president and former president, Susan Eagle, as vice president.
It also deferred approving a memorandum of understanding for a potential boarding school. The Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program – or ANSEP – is seeking to build a 400-bed boarding school geared towards engineering and science on the former Wrangell Institute property. ANSEP is currently a summer program run through the University of Alaska Anchorage campus, and began running its first high school program in the Matanuska-Susitna school district this fall.
The MOU would partner the district with the borough, the Wrangell Cooperative Association and UAA to include the community in the planning process. The MOU will be on the agenda during next month’s meeting.
