Thefts convert normal school day to crisis management due to busing cancellation
As the winds start speeding up and the temperature starts to drop, losing access to their main form of transportation to school is the last thing students expected. Kobussen Buses was victimized by thefts of their catalytic converters, causing delays in busing on Wednesday, September 28. Later that evening, Kobussen had to deal with double the amount of their converters stolen when they were hit again. Despite efforts to continue running buses, they had no choice but to cancel transportation on Thursday.
The Oshkosh Area School District (OASD) sent out emails to families and put out a statement regarding this incident.
“Kobussen’s catalytic converter thefts first caused a delay for OASD busing on Wednesday,” the district said. “The catalytic converter thefts occurred overnight. This is an unfortunate situation, and the OASD appreciates all that Kobussen is doing.”
Of the over 9,000 students enrolled in the Oshkosh Area School District, all who rode the bus had to figure out a new way to get to school.
“It affected students and families, and it is really sad that things like this happen in our community,” Principal Erin Kohl said. “It was certainly disruptive to students' education, and while I know that families did the best they could to find solutions, they shouldn’t have to do that.”
When asked about the incident, Kobussen representatives chose not to comment.
Unfortunately, due to the incident, students like freshman Drew Streeter had unnecessary tension added to their lives.
“I couldn’t ride the bus, and it caused a lot of stress on kids,” he said.
Sophomore Jacob Shultz was concerned about how such an event even occurred in the first place. The issue ultimately boiled down to security at Kobussen.
“Parents probably see it poorly because how do you let someone do that?” he said. “If you go on Google Maps, the place is just bare with hundreds of buses just sitting there. It is asking someone to steal.”
To students like Streeter, the situation was bizarre and could have been prevented with better security.
“If they had cameras outside of the buses, it wouldn’t happen two days in a row,” he said.
Given the circumstances, the situation was very confusing to the student body, including sophomore Jordan Glenn Kanak.
“The way that the converters are, they’re huge so it’s surprising that that could happen,” he said. “It should’ve been easily spotted.”
Families of students were also impacted by the interruption in services, as they now had to scramble to find a new source of transit to get their kids to school. Freshman Carson Nienhaus had to have someone else put aside events in his personal life to take him to school.
“My parents had a good friend whose kid goes here,” he said. “He took off for the day and took me to school. It was unfortunate because then he had to take his day off.”
Not only was this an issue for students, but it also became an issue for the school since the lack of transportation for some students led to poor attendance and many were late to their first hours. Kathy Bechard, who works at the front desk of Door 38, saw firsthand how many students were affected.
“I think that it is very stressful to arrive at school ten minutes late every day and miss out on the first portion of school,” she said.
Attendance may have been an issue, but Kohl recognized students weren’t at fault.
“At the high school level, attendance may have been impacted a little, but tardies to school were more significant,” she said. “We didn’t mark kids tardy that day because of the bus situation, so if kids were late we obviously weren’t going to blame them.”
By Fareeha Ahmad
Oshkosh West Index Volume 119 Issue II
October 31 2022