Dear Parents/Guardians:

The District would like to apologize for the mass confusion yesterday with transportation and the extremely late arrivals. This was unacceptable, and we apologize.

The District is very much aware of the issues that have occurred this year with busing students.  Overall route patterns used for more than fifteen years had to be completely overhauled this summer.  The consolidation of buildings and grade levels across the District meant that transportation staff members were completely redesigning routes and stop times.  To make matters more complicated, nine drivers have resigned from the District leaving open routes.  Our remaining drivers have tried to work to cover the routes to the best of their ability over the past couple of months, but buses have been running late for many students during the pick-up and/or drop-off.  This is not acceptable to us.  In addition, there were multiple bus transfers for some students making it difficult to know what bus to ride especially when bus numbers seemed to change often.  As a result, all of the routes have been revised and additional drivers have been hired to cover the open routes in order to provide a better service to our students and their families.

On Tuesday, November 22, 2011 bus drivers were to give each student that rode his/her bus a letter to give to parents regarding the change in bus routes. We hoped that this would be the best time to provide the letters so that students wouldn't lose them before getting home. We knew that some students might get missed so we followed that up with an OneCallNow message to the entire district. Parents of JVS students did not receive the message because in the past, they have asked to be removed from our OneCallNow system. If you did not receive this call, please check with your student's school to make sure your contact information is updated. The new routes were then posted at each school on Tuesday so that parents had Wednesday through Sunday to check the lists. The principals tried to share the information with students before they were released on Tuesday. At the beginning of the year, we received several requests for the information to be posted on our website so we posted the exact information that was at our buildings to our website. We put this information on the website to make it easier for parents to get the information especially if they were out of town and couldn't make it to the school. On Monday, November 28 the District received a few phone calls complaining about student addresses being posted online. The only reason an address would have been posted is if that is the actual bus stop. Due to this, we removed the information and asked parents to contact his/her child's school for route information.

The District chose to start the routes yesterday because we felt that having the five days for Thanksgiving would allow parents enough time to get bus route information. Two employees were at transportation all day Wednesday, November 23 for those who had route questions. The Director of Business and Technology was also available to answer questions until 6 p.m. on Wednesday. Very few calls were received.

For a variety of reasons (i.e., new drivers running new routes, students not knowing what bus to get on, etc), buses were running extremely late yesterday. Staff at Central Office, Transportation, and each of the schools were answering phone calls as quickly as they could. The District apologizes that an OneCallNow message was not sent. Staff was so concentrated on getting all children on the correct buses and phones answered that sending a message was overlooked. This will not happen in the future. In fact, bus routes are being entered into the OneCallNow system so that any time a bus is running late, a parent will receive a phone call only if they have a child riding that particular bus. The District tries not to send too many OneCallNow messages out to parents so when messages are sent, it is extremely important that you listen to the entire message. We often have parents who immediately hang up and then call Central Office to find out what the message said.

The District does not expect the same situation to occur today, but if routes are running late an OneCallNow message will be sent out. Once again, we apologize for the confusion and lateness of buses yesterday. Thank you for your continued support.