Author: Jonathon Norcross

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Before Jerry Garcia stumbled upon the term in a dictionary, “Grateful Dead” originally referred to a folktale about a person who received karmic repayment for the good deed of resolving the debt of someone who had died. Perhaps it’s fitting then that the family and friends of Justin Kreider, a Grateful Dead and jam band fan who passed away in 2022, have honored his memory by providing scholarship money to student-musicians.

“[Justin] had this crazy memory,” said his wife Melissa Kreider. “He would memorize setlists. He knew all the lyrics, all the stories of where the lyrics came from and who wrote the songs.”

“We’d be at shows in the 90s and he would just be able to meet people,” said Justin’s friend Mark Scirocco. “He’d get their addresses and be trading [cassette] tapes with people. Next thing you’d know, he’d have hundreds of tapes.”

Justin’s love of music led to Melissa and Mark co-founding the Justin Kreider Music Never Stopped Fund, which began its mission in earnest earlier this month with a cornhole tournament at the Saratoga Winery that raised $1,500. The money will go to a graduating Saratoga Springs High School student-musician who is looking to further their music education in college. The school’s music department will be nominating students for the prize. 

Justin grew up in Saratoga Springs and graduated from the city’s high school in 1993. 

His first job at the Trattoria Restaurant resulted in a nearly three-decade-long career in the restaurant business that took him to Park City, Utah and Portland, Oregon. He became the head chef of his own family in 2009, when his first child, Allison, was born. He also had a son, Dylan.

The Music Never Stopped Fund’s logo sums up much of Justin’s interests, incorporating a dancing turtle (his nickname was Turtle), a Yankees cap (he was a devoted baseball nerd), and of course the Grateful Dead’s signature “Stealie” skull and lightning bolt design. 

Justin’s love of the Grateful Dead also helped to sum up his life philosophy, which in turn led to the creation of the music scholarship that bears his name. He’d often listen to Big Steve Parish, a former Grateful Dead crew member who now hosts a radio show devoted to the Dead.

“We’d be driving around town and you know the way Saratoga traffic can be, you’d be grumpy or whatever and Justin would be like, ‘hey, you gotta be like Big Steve and be a little nicer to everybody,’” said Scirocco. “For me, [the Music Never Stopped Fund is] like fulfilling that part of things. It’s like, let’s make things a little bit nicer for some people. I don’t want to be too tree hugger-ish or whatever, but it’s like let’s spread the love around. So it’s trying to live up to that ideal a little bit while remembering him.”

The Justin Kreider Music Never Stopped Fund will next host a Mandala Drawing Workshop at Next Door Kitchen & Bar on November 24. For more details, visit the charity’s Facebook page.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Recent bus cancellations by the Saratoga Springs City School District caused some parents to vent their frustrations in a local Facebook group.

On November 6, one parent posted to the group “What’s Going on Saratoga” that she was notified that her son’s bus was canceled less than 90 minutes before dismissal. “I have no idea the procedure, can’t seem to find it in the handbook, and no one is answering the phone there,” the parent wrote.

Screenshots of Saratoga Springs school district notifications stated that “due to the school bus driver shortage and employee illness,” buses 461 and 466 were both canceled, along with all after-school late buses. 

Earlier this year, the district cut two full-time transportation department positions as part of its 2024-2025 budget. Although neither of the positions were technically drivers, they were a dispatcher and mechanic, both of whom sometimes served as substitute bus drivers when necessary.

At an April 25 budget adoption meeting, bus dispatcher Dean Musgrove expressed his opposition to the cuts. “It’s really going to do a lot of damage to our department and I don’t think you realize the extent of it,” Musgrove said. “I have a hard time understanding why $180,000 can’t be located to cover these two positions that you’re talking about cutting…Even though they’re not technically driver positions, they are actually drivers.”

In April, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Michael Patton said there had been “significant sacrifices” in order to achieve a balanced budget. “We truly appreciate the feedback that we do receive from transportation,” he said. “Mr. Musgrove and I had several conversations.” Dr. Patton also noted that other similarly-sized school districts had fewer dispatchers and routing specialists than Saratoga Springs.

Bus driver shortages have been an ongoing issue both locally and across the country. Data from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) indicates that from September 2019 to September 2023, there was a 15.1% decrease in the total number of K-12 bus drivers nationwide. Private school bus driver employment also declined by 21.5% over the same four-year period.

Several factors have contributed to the shortage, including low wages. According to the EPI, school bus driver wages are significantly lower than most other workers. Drivers earned an average of $20 per hour in 2022, which is nearly 17% less than the median wage for all workers. Drivers only work an average of around 32 hours per week, which means their weekly wages are also below average. Many drivers also don’t work during summers, which decreases their yearly income.

The Saratoga Springs school district currently has a bus driver job opening that pays $22.15 per hour, which is below the median wage for all workers in the economy ($24.04), according to data from 2022.