LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky's largest school district restarted classes for some students Friday after a bus transportation debacle forced officials to cancel school last week.
Jefferson County Schools, a public district with more than 90,000 students, drew up new bus routes and staggered school start times under a new plan that officials hoped would alleviate issues caused by driver shortages.
Instead, it led to a shutdown of schools for more than a week. Officials decided to return elementary and middle school students Friday and high school students Monday.
District officials apologized to outraged parents after the bus disruptions and pledged to add resources to help with delays.
Media reports around the city Friday morning indicated fewer transportation issues than on the first day of school Aug. 9. School officials adjusted some stops and gave bus drivers with complicated routes a ride-along person to help with navigation. Officials also were using an app that shows where buses are in real time. That app will soon also be available to parents.
There were scattered reports of buses arriving late for school, including for two of Keeley Finn's children. Finn said two of her three children rode the bus Friday morning, and although the buses arrived about 10 minutes late, both children arrived at school long after it had started.
Her 11-year-old son arrived at school at 9:30 a.m., she said.
“School starts at 8 a.m. and is only about a 12 minute drive from our house,” Finn said.
Her 13-year-old daughter has a longer commute, including a bus transfer, but actually arrived earlier — 44 minutes after the start of school, Finn said.
She thinks the transportation problems could be alleviated by increasing bus driver pay.
“They have a really hard job. They really do,” she said. “They put up with some very challenging behaviors. They deserve to be paid fairly for what they do.”
Berkley Collins, whose middle school daughter arrived home two hours late on the first day of school last week, said she still hasn’t yet been able to get her other daughter an assigned bus to her elementary school.
Her younger daughter had to miss school Friday because of the lack of transportation. Collins spent Friday morning calling school officials and said she was told her daughter may not have a daily bus ride available for her until early next month.
“It makes me feel like her education isn’t important,” Collins said. She said she was told the school would forgive her daughter's absences.
School officials advised parents in a note Thursday that they “expect some buses may drop children off at stops later than expected," Friday. They also encouraged parents who could make alternate transportation arrangements to do so. The district has about 65,000 bus riders.
“While this is not ideal, it is the reality right now,” the note from JCPS officials said.
Some of the blame has been heaped on a contractor the district hired to redraw its bus routes. The changes by AlphaRoute led to some students not being picked up in the morning and others not getting home until nearly 10 p.m.
The company said it sent a team to Louisville to help address problems.
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This story has been corrected to show that Finn’s two children who rode the bus are a boy and a girl, not both daughters.
