A year in review of JCPS transportation system, busing issues in Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – On Tuesday, the Jefferson County Public Schools Board of Education will vote on a plan that would eliminate transportation for more than 14,000 students.

After a year of severe bus delays and inability to recruit enough drivers JCPS has recommended the board eliminate transportation for students who attend magnet schools or programs, traditional schools, and students who attend Academies of Louisville programs that are not in their reside school.

If approved, JCPS would only transport students who attend their reside school, and other students who are federally required to receive transportation, for example, students protected under the McKinney Vento Act and students who have transportation included in an Individualized Education Program.

The possible change, is a difficult reality for Cassie Kidd, whose daughter attends Fairdale High School for its emergency management magnet program. Kidd does not have a car and would be unable to drive her daughter every day.

"It would be heartbreaking," Kidd said. "I don’t want to go down that route."

For the last several years, JCPS has struggled to recruit enough bus drivers, resulting in buses running delayed, up to several hours.

Last school year, the state's largest school district dealt with the same problems.

To address the busing issues, in February 2023, Superintendent Dr. Marty Pollio began to campaign a plan that would change the district start times from just two, 7:40 a.m. and 9:05 a.m., to nine times ranging from 7:40 a.m. to 10:40 a.m. Most schools would start at 7:40 a.m., 8:40 a.m., or 9:40 a.m.

Pollio said staggering times allowed bus drivers enough time to complete a route before having to begin the next.

"If we do nothing it will be the same next year and worse," Pollio said in February 2023. "These nine start times completely solve our issues around transportation."

The plan was met with opposition from several in the district. Concerns about elementary school students getting home after dark were raised, as were families’ schedules being disrupted and no longer aligning.

"I don’t know what to do at this point," said Marvin Sweat in February 2023.

Sweat took a job at JCPS so he could be on the same schedule as his grandson and help take care of him. The new start times meant the two would no longer have similar schedules.

Despite concerns, the plan passed in March 2023.

Then in July 2023, JCPS announced bus routes would be changing.

The district contracted with Boston-based logistics company AlphaRoute to help create new routes and assign bus stops.

During a news conference over the summer, Pollio expressed confidence that students would not wait on buses more than hour, if that.

"First and foremost, after school, we had said that (for) a lot of buses, 40 minutes was the window we gave AlphaRoute," Pollio said at the time. "So that's just a part of what we have to do, because we have four or five different time periods where they're being bused or picked up on a bus. So 40 minutes is the limit which we wanted."

However, the first day of school with new start times and bus routes, proved to be disastrous for the district. The first day was plagued with bus delays in the morning and the afternoon. Some students' buses never showed up that morning, and others didn't get dropped off from school that evening until almost 10 p.m.

JCPS decided to cancel classes for the remainder of that week, and later extended that closure to include most of the following week, as it implemented a staggered return for students.

“First and foremost, I want to apologize for what happened last night,” Pollio said in a recorded message sent to JCPS families and posted on social media after the first day of school.

During an interview with WDRB in Dec. 2023, Pollio said part of the problem the district faced is that from the introduction of the start time proposal, to the first day of school, JCPS lost around 100 bus drivers.

JCPS has continually blamed a nationwide bus driver shortage as part of the problem.

Now, JCPS has said to completely solve the problem around bus delays, it must cut back on routes.

In Feb. 2024, JCPS said it has 558 drivers, 563 routes, and averages 52 drivers absent daily. That leaves 57 routes uncovered daily.

The district projects by July 2024, it will have 526 drivers. Assuming it averages the same number of drivers out daily, JCPS wants to have 474 or less routes a day, to ensure routes are covered by drivers.

JCPS has presented and discussed three options to its board members since the fall of 2023.

The three options are:

No longer provide buses for students who attend magnet and traditional schools, and only transport students who attend reside schools or an A5 school and students who require transportation under federal law, such as students experiencing homelessness or students in special education
Operate central hubs where magnet and traditional students could get bused to school from a drop-off point instead of from their neighborhoods
Keep the current system and its associated delays

Another option not discussed as in-depth, would allow magnet and traditional schools with a high percentage of students on free or reduced lunch to still receive transportation. However, JCPS said the numbers fluctuate, and would change year-to-year of what schools would meet its set threshold.

"Where I am right now and where we have to look forward facing is the simple mathematical equation that we have less bus drivers than we have routes," Pollio said.

JCPS has said eliminating transportation for all magnet and traditional students would get the district to a point it could have fewer routes than drivers.

However, board members have varying opinions on the plan.

JCPS school bus. Image from WDRB drone on March 22, 2024.

Board member Chris Kolb is concerned about limiting transportation to students, but feels it is the best option to remedy the problem of students missing class time.

"Don’t think it’s the right thing to do, to say we have transportation when we really don’t," Kolb said. "Yes, we can get everyone to school eventually but you know then they’re missing a lot of instructional time so families need to be able to rely on the transportation.”

Board chairperson Corrie Shull is not in favor of any of the options. He has asked JCPS to come up with more equitable solutions.

"Our most vulnerable students, our neediest students need access to transportation," Shull said. "I think that our magnet schools need to be diverse and when I speak of diversity in respect to race and economics so we need to make sure we have a diversity in our magnet schools and that is priority number one for me."

Last week, JCPS posted its agenda for Tuesday’s meeting and the official recommendation to only transport students who attend neighborhood schools, and students the district is federally required to transport, including special education students that have transportation included in their IEP or homeless students.

The district also posted a survey which requested feedback on the plan.

In that survey, JCPS explained how its recommendation is the most equitable for Black and other students of color.

"Black and other students of color are a majority of JCPS bus riders and are disproportionately being impacted, right now, by the shortage of drivers and the resulting late arriving buses. Those students - thousands of them - are missing, on average, 14 minutes of instruction at the start of every school day. Some are arriving more than an hour late on some days. We have 8,500 magnet school students who are Black. Approximately 6,000 of them ride the bus. Yes, we understand those students will be impacted the most as will all students who make the choice to attend a magnet school and need a ride to get there," JCPS said in its recommendation.

The board of education will meet Tuesday at the Van Hoose Education Center at 6 p.m. The board is expected to vote on transportation at that meeting.

More JCPS Transportation Coverage: