The current drop-off time that was used for routing this year was 10 minutes before the school’s start time. Unfortunately, as we have learned, that is too close to the start of the school day—especially with traffic—to allow for timely arrival at schools and provide students the opportunity to take advantage of breakfast service or visit their lockers.
No. Last year, when high school started at 7:25 a.m., bus routes were scheduled to drop off students at their school by 6:55 – 7 a.m. Additionally, we were doing double runs last year, which meant some students arrived at their schools much earlier than scheduled. The drop-off target of 7:30 a.m. under the plan effective Sept. 20 will still be 30-35 minutes later than what we had in place last year.
While it is projected that the 20 minutes of total time added to the schedule will result in significant improvements, it does not fix the challenge occurring in Tier 1 of buses which are getting slowed significantly by the confluence of car riders and student drivers. This reality is the primary reason for the Tier 1 on-time status from the time a bus picks up their first stop to the time they drop off at the school.
Currently, thousands of students are arriving at school after the first bell—some coming a few minutes late and some missing significant instructional and support time. This consistent tardiness will undoubtedly have a detrimental impact on the instruction and supports students receive while at school and needs to be addressed.
Additionally, asking students and staff to remain at school long after dismissal is untenable as it requires staff to be available to provide oversight while students wait at the school for their bus.
At recent Board of Education meetings and in community updates, Superintendent Dr. Michael J. Martirano outlined several adjustments that HCPSS has made to realize improvements in student transportation services, including:
Correcting the routes provided to contractors to align with information on the bus locator,
Improvements to the process of how buses leave the Zum Services bus lot,
During the first few days of the school year, we addressed several logistical issues that impacted transportation. However, despite these adjustments, the biggest issue impacting the ability of bus drivers to deliver students to school in the morning and home in the afternoon on time is insufficient time between our school start times. Buses quickly become delayed at our earliest schools based on insufficient route timing, traffic delays, and competing with student drivers/car drop-offs entering and exiting schools at the same time.
Thousands of students have been experiencing delays that have interrupted instructional time at the beginning of the day and some students have been getting dropped off nearly two hours after their dismissal. School start time changes that will take effect on Wednesday, Sept. 20 to better support the on-time arrival of school buses.
The current routing for Tier 1 schools has buses arriving at the school 10 minutes before the first bell which did not take into account the significant traffic at schools within 10 minutes of school starting with families and students driving to school. In the morning, while the Tier 1 buses get to their first stop on time, they are getting stuck in the congestion trying to get onto the campus and then getting out of the campus to begin their Tier 2 pick-ups. Then they arrive to their Tier 2 school late, and subsequently are late to their Tier 3 schools.
The new start times will be implemented Wednesday, Sept. 20, because of the urgency to resolve these chronic delays and Sept. 20 is when our team will be ready to implement the new times after testing the new schedule. Delaying implementation would negatively impact new students enrolling in the system, including prekindergarten students and further delay our efforts to improve specialized routing. Launching the new times prior to a three-day weekend will also allow staff to mitigate any issues that are experienced during the first three days of implementation.
Before and after-school care service providers in HCPSS schools may need to adjust the start and end times. HCPSS is communicating these changes with those providers for awareness so they can make adjustments. Please contact your child's service provider for more information.
