See also: Broward's School Bus System Is A Mess; Broward's School Bus Mess Has Turned Into Finger-Pointing Farce
Update: Tindall announced that he's taking a medical leave for at least six weeks. It's not clear whether he will stay on the job after that time. Tindall also apologized for the recent Broward school bus system mess.
So the whole Broward school bus mess is still a thing. Specifically, Broward School District management and union reps are still playing the blame game.
And during Wednesday's meeting of the School Board, 50 angry bus drivers showed up demanding that Transportation Director Chester Tindall be given the boot.
Last week, Tindall and Superintendent Robert Runcie blamed the whole thing on bus driver and employee sabotage, which is what has the union reps fuming.
For his part, Tindall continued to talk like he's living in a 1930s gangster movie.
"I'm not going to go quietly. I'm going to continue to talk about nepotism and how much money the district has been losing because of overtime and other issues," Tindall said. "I'm not going to stand back and let people vilify my reputation on things that were created before I got here."
Meanwhile, chief of the Federation of Public Employees and driver rep Dan Reynolds, during today's meeting, said part of the problem is that the drivers have a different route every day as the transportation department scrambles to fix the situation.
Reynolds said the union has a meeting scheduled for Thursday with Maurice Woods, chief strategy and operations officer. Reynolds also repeated their desire to see Tindall canned.
"Not only has he insulted these people, he's been unfocused on job one, which is transporting the kid," Reynolds said. "He's been a loose cannon spouting wild ideas in the press. He's brought discredit on his boss, Robert Runcie."
I'm not going down quietly.
Loose cannons.
Using the press to spout wild ideas.
Nepotism.
It sounds like the worst noir movie ever.
Meanwhile, Broward kids are still being dropped off ten miles from home and being forced to wait for their bus at the ass-crack of dawn just so they can get to school.
Delightful.
