MILL HALL — Though it wasn’t listed on the agenda, the Keystone Central School District Board of Directors briefly talked about transportation and the challenges it faces.

The topic was brought at the tail end of the board’s first work session of 2025 by Board member Chris Scaff.

Scaff said the topic of transportation in the district was brought up during his Meet the Board events on Jan. 7 and 13.

“One of the big things that was really coming up from a lot of different people were problems with transportation,” he said. “We really have no answers. A lot of it is safety on the bus… how bus drivers are treating kids.”

Superintendent Dr. Frank Redmon chimed in to say the issue with bus driver treatment of students was brought up by one parent during these meetings.

Scaff, however, said he’s heard about issues regarding transportation outside of those meetings.

“I’ve (heard) a lot more issues than what you said,” he said. “I think it might be advisable for the board as a group to work on transportation. Maybe a committee to help with what we’re doing.”

Scaff noted one woman said her kids are riding the school bus for three hours one way.

“They have to be picked up before 6 o’clock,” he said. “That’s a concern of mine.”

Scaff asked if the board could meet with Transportation Supervisor Shelly Ott to work on these issues.

“I think maybe we as a board should work on that together. Maybe get Shelly to come in and we could have a work night where we try and maybe figure out some different solutions. Especially with the safety stuff,” he said.

Scaff noted a parent who spoke of an incident where a student became sick on the bus and the driver “told other students to clean up the vomit off the floor.”

Redmon said the district investigated that particular incident and said “the way it was characterized didn’t exactly happen that way.”

“I find it weird that these people would come to a meeting and say ‘this happened’ and we say no it didn’t,” Scaff said.

“But understand it’s the way students characterize things. It may not be perfectly accurate,” Redmon answered.

Board member Elisabeth Lynch said she agreed with Scaff’s suggestion to figure out solutions to transportation problems.

“The system isn’t going to work and we can’t be mediocre year after year. We can’t keep falling back to ‘we don’t have enough bus drivers’ — we need to deal with the world we live in and keep going,” she said.