JCPS: More classes could be canceled if bus system not fixed in time

Jefferson County Public Schools leaders want students to return Monday after widespread bus delays on the first day of school caused children to arrive home hours late and forced it to cancel classes for the rest of the week.

But spokesperson Carolyn Callahan told The Courier Journal that the district could cancel classes as late as Sunday night if the necessary fixes aren't made in time.

When asked what will make district leaders feel comfortable with transporting students come Monday, she listed several things.

"We need to complete a thorough review of every bus stop and bus route and implement changes as necessary," Callahan said Thursday afternoon. "We need to make sure every bus rider has a bus stop that they can safely walk to. We must have full confidence from our drivers and with our drivers that they know their routes and can complete them in time to get to their next route."

The district has about 13,000 bus stops spread over its roughly 600 routes. It transports about 70% of its about 96,000 students across the 380-square-mile county each day. More than a dozen of those schools' routes cover two-thirds of the county.

Little has been said about what exactly caused the "transportation disaster" that occurred Wednesday on the first day of school, when the last students were dropped off at 9:58 p.m. Callahan said there were still eight students on buses as of 9:30.

Hundreds of students had to wait at school after dismissal for their buses to arrive as parents waited for hours at their stops. Callahan said the issues were throughout the district.

JCPS was using a a new bus routing system designed by AlphaRoute, a Boston-based consulting company that uses artificial intelligence to map out courses and stops. The aim was to have a smaller number of routes so that there wouldn't be a need for as many bus drivers following a shortage last year.

The district also switched from two to nine staggered school start times, with dismissals running from 2:20 through 4:20 p.m.

John Hanlon, the CEO of AlphaRoute, said the root causes of the problems were unclear. But he added that they were "likely caused by the significant changes to bus routing which were made necessary by the district's severe driver shortage."

He said the company delivered its "final routing solutions" to the district in early July and the district imported them into its own routing platform.

District drivers were given four days and two optional weekend days to practice their routes ahead of Wednesday, Callahan said. After classes were canceled on Thursday and Friday, drivers were to run their routes on those days without students to further practice. It was unclear if they would do so over the weekend as well.

The district also sent an email to all employees late Thursday afternoon telling them to report to work Friday "to continue supporting school preparations."

Superintendent Marty Pollio had indicated Wednesday around noon that one bus had broken down, but delays seen in the morning were a normal aspect of the beginning of the school year. Far more significant delays were seen in the afternoon.

Delays at the bus compounds in the afternoon, where students transfer from one bus to another, was "one major issue," Callahan said, adding that the issues weren't experienced in any particular area or scenario.

Whether or not JCPS can manage to fix the bus situation come Monday, the damage has already been done for some families and certainly for politicians who are calling for Gov. Andy Beshear to call a special session to address the district's issues.

Erika Smallwood, a mother and aunt to JCPS students, told The Courier Journal her daughters' bus ride to school lasted two hours, rather than 45 minutes, and her autistic daughter who has low blood sugar wasn't given any food. Additionally, her nephew, who is in the second grade, was supposed to get dropped off at 3:14 p.m. but didn't show up until more than five hours later at 8:47.

Smallwood added that no one from her nephew's school or the bus depot hotline answered phone calls.

On Thursday, Callahan said JCPS' plan to rectify communications issues is to provide "better information to schools, allowing them to text and/or email families about any late buses." She said at this time, the district would not be using a Bus Delay Dashboard from last year that allowed parents to know ahead of time if their child's bus was running late.

Diane Porter, chairwoman of the JCPS board that approved this year's changes, said in an email that it would be asking Pollio "for a full accounting of what happened" to cause the first-day issues.

"But first we must get our immediate problem corrected," she said. "We must be able to get our students to and from school in a safe, reliable way."

More: JCPS used a Boston firm to overhaul its busing system. What we know about AlphaRoute

Contact reporter Krista Johnson at kjohnson3@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: JCPS busing issues: What district wants to see before school resumes