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News you can use
Preschoolers from Paige Werk's class at Northern Montana Child Development Center unload from their new bus Wednesday.
Northern Montana Child Development Center's very new bus parks Wednesday morning outside the development center to drop off children. The bus was received on Tuesday and was out on Wednesday already moving students around town.
Northern Montana Child Development Center's day old bus is filled with features removable seatbelts for the preschoolers to air conditioning, a back-up camera, speakers and an automatic bus door.
Northern Montana Child Development Center's day old bus is filled with features removable seatbelts for the preschoolers to air conditioning, a back-up camera, speakers and an automatic bus door.
Some local children have new transportation to early education.
Havre's Head Start received two new school buses, one Tuesday and one Wednesday.
District 4 Human Resources Development Council Child Services Director and Head Start Program Director Samantha Clawson said the buses the program used prior were a decade old with mechanical issues that made them unreliable for transportation.
"A lot of our students rely on us providing transportation for them to be able to participate in our program, and, especially when the weather gets really cold, we've had a lot of issues with the buses having mechanical issues and not being able to be reliable transportation for our students," she said. "Our bus drivers have two brand-new 2020 model year buses to be able to provide reliable transportation for our kids."
She said the money used to purhcase these new buses was from some grant funding from the office of Head Start. She added that the program will be keeping one of the newer older buses as a backup bus.
"But now, with securing two new buses and keeping the best of the old buses as our new backup, we anticipate that we will be able to offer transportation consistently to ensure that all of our children are able to attend," she said.
Havre Head Start on average serves 80 children, she said. She added that, in total, Head Start has three buses which are able to provide transportation to students in five out of the seven classes the program offers.
"I'm really excited. The people that we have driving our buses, our bus drivers, are excellent employees who are really passionate about the program and it feels really good to know that we are providing them with new vehicles to be able to provide transportation," Clawson said. "We are excited because we think that this will help with our attendance."
It is important to her and the program that every child has accesst, she said
"We are really excited to be able to help ensure that they can show up consistently to get the positive educational experience that they receive at Head Start," Clawson said.
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