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Guerrero nips Bennett’s metal seat suggestion
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Posted on Apr 25 2005
An official of the Public School System lambasted yesterday Board of Education teacher representative Ambrose Bennett’s suggestion to use metal seats in lieu of upholstered ones.
Board of Education board member Herman T. Guerrero said Bennett should think things through first before he writes a suggestion to the media because it only makes him look like an “idiot.”
“I’m sorry, we are not transporting prisoners,” Guerrero said.
He said they are dealing with students and that the PSS makes it a point that students are comfortable when they are being transported from their homes to their schools and vice versa.
In a letter to the editor to the Saipan Tribune yesterday, Bennett suggested that PSS order all new buses with steel or metal seats because these seats could be cheaper than padded seats. He also said the only other reason buses have padded seats is for comfort and aesthetics purposes.
Associate commissioner for administrative services David M. Borja said he appreciates Bennett’s concerns but, unfortunately, the standards for school buses is to follow the federal vehicles standards safety act.
He said the specifications of the school buses are actually a federal requirement, which strictly enumerates details on sitting constructions and others.
Borja said probably in the future, when they bid out contracts for new buses, they could consider Bennett’s suggestion. But the contract for the additional three 66-seat capacity buses has already been signed and that they are now being ordered for shipment to the island in September.
He also said metal or plastic molded seats on school buses would represent a new set of specifications and probably new costing. Borja said PSS could not accept additional costs anymore because of its tight budget.
Guerrero said what the board needs to do now is to try to figure out how they could impose or encourage the parents to talk with their children not to vandalize the newly acquired buses, which costs around $90,000 each.
Guerrero said children are not only hurting the buses but they are hurting themselves too.
