Bus delays, overcrowding mark first day of school at JCPS

Thirty minutes after the start of the class, Hudson Middle School Principal Jeronda Majors realized she needed to make a short drive over to an elementary school to pick up a few of her students who'd been inadvertently dropped off there.

Minutes earlier, a bus showed up at Hudson carrying 14 of her smiling new students - though the bus number wasn't the one expected.

Across town, a teacher reported Norton Elementary still hadn't seen a single bus rider show up for school 25 minutes after its 9:40 a.m. start time.

And at Nichols Bus Compound, a Spanish-speaking student missed his bus that would take him to Newcomer Academy because no one was around who could communicate with him. An employee told a Courier Journal reporter there are normally translators from the school at the compound to help in such instances, but there weren't any there Wednesday morning.

It was a chaotic start for Jefferson County Public Schools, the first day back under a plan that includes nine staggered start times for schools across the district, new bus stops and the end of forced busing.

Problems included overcrowded buses, buses that parents said never showed up and students being dropped off at the wrong building. Buses meant to pick up students from a bus compound at 9 a.m. didn't head out until 9:55.

Superintendent Marty Pollio, who toured several schools for the start of classes, said there are always delays on the first day of school and added that some of them were likely due to traffic.He said the district will clear up any issues with delays and start times during the first two weeks of classes to ensure that all students arrive before the first bell.

“The really hard part is making sure every kid is on the right bus going home,” Pollio said at a press conference at Fern Creek High School. “We’re focusing on our elementary school students. Obviously, those are the ones we focus on the most.”

Pollio said he talked to a student at Hudson Middle School, 1107 South 17th Street, in the morning who said last year he rode the bus to Trunnell Elementary School, which was a 30-minute bus ride. However, the student said he can now walk "15 seconds" from his house to his school, which Pollio said relates to changes in school choice this year.

“I think that is the reason we are doing the changes in school choice, just so that we make sure families have options in our choice zone, which is primarily west Louisville,” Pollio said about the situation. “For the first time ever that young man’s family has choice, so we’re very proud to see that and all the excitement.”

The district spent $199,000 to hire the AlphaRoute engineering firm to create a plan that would cut the number of bus routes and stops following a bus driver shortage last year that led to students being late for classes and sometimes stranded after school.

AlphaRoute uses artificial intelligence to map the system's routes, which allowed the district to use a smaller number of routes than drivers for the first time in several years.

But parents throughout the city told The Courier Journal of their issues on the first day. One parent in Cherokee Triangle said the bus never picked their children up, "and we had to drive them 30 minutes after school began."

A parent at Hartstern Elementary said: "We waited one hour at the bus with tons of other students. We are an ESL (English as a Second Language) family and couldn't find anyone to help us besides our caseworkers. But no one from school. We were lost and don't know about tomorrow."

Pollio has repeatedly said the changes were necessary given the bus driver shortage. Without the overhaul, he has said, students would continue to miss instruction time while waiting to get picked up and they'd continue to be stuck after school while waiting for a driver to take them home.

Leading up to the first day, several parents were concerned about the location of stops, with some questioning the safety of some of the locations. Thousands of families requested new stops, JCPS spokesman Mark Hebert said last week, but it's unclear how many parents were successful in getting changes.

The last student was scheduled to be dropped off at 6:33 p.m. Wednesday, Hebert said. But Pollio said it'd take a lot longer than normal on day one.

Reporters Kate Marijolovic and Leah Hunter contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: JCPS first day of school: Bus delays, overcrowding create chaos