JCPS parents will see 'night and day' difference in busing plan when school begins, driver says

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Rickey Readus is ready to get back on the road.

Louisville's first day of school is Thursday, and Readus can't wait fill his bus with Jefferson County Public Schools students. He spent this summer practicing the district's new bus routes and the last few weeks driving his own route.

"I'm looking forward to a much better year," he said Tuesday. "We've had plenty of time to be on the road getting familiar with our routes. It's given us a lot of confidence. ... With the routes we have, it's looking really great."

JCPS leaders said Monday they've worked countless hours the past few months on the transportation plan, including using an internal routing team. And while they expect the first day to be bumpy, they believe the changes will be positive.

"We essentially overhauled the entire transportation system this year," JCPS Chief Operations Officer Rob Fulk said Monday. "We started with an internal routing team made up of JCPS internal bus coordinators (and) bus professionals in the industry. We started from the ground up."

Fulk said the early test runs for drivers have gone well, and drivers will continue testing their routes through Wednesday. On those test runs, the last drop off was around 6:20 p.m., and improvement from the average of 7 p.m. last year, district leader said. However, they expect a later drop off time for the last student on the first day of school, likely around 7:30 p.m.

Justin Scharrer, president of the Teamsters 782 union, which represents the district's bus drivers, the union president, said the improvement is a demonstration of the district taking drivers' feedback.

"Things are much different than last year," Scharrer said Tuesday. "A lot of preliminary work has been put in place."

One of the biggest changes to the route this year is JCPS internal routing team tried to keep drivers closer to their compounds. And around 65% of routes are mirrored, meaning it reflects in the morning and afternoon.

Scharrer also said JCPS heard drivers on student discipline, and a new memorandum of understanding was created, lining out a process on how drivers and JCPS must handle complaints.

In an effort to address a bus driver shortage, the district reached an agreement with Transit Authority of River City that transitioned some of their drivers, who were at risk of losing their jobs because of the agency's financial state and decision to scale back routes, to the school district. JCPS anticipates 70 drivers from TARC will be available to drive for JCPS, but Pollio said Monday that only 14 of those drivers are slated to begin the year driving for the district.

All the changes Readus said, will be noticed by families once school starts Thursday.

"It's going to be night and day from last year," she said.

'Give everyone some grace'

The district has been working all summer to make changes. JCPS maintained that the only option to keep buses on schedule and students on time is to cut transportation for all magnet and traditional schools, which has impacted more than 14,000 students. For the last several years, JCPS has struggled to recruit enough bus drivers, resulting in buses running delayed, some 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, 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.

"In the end, my goal is an intense focus on making sure that we did not have kids missing millions of instructional minutes like we have each of the past several years," Pollio said Monday, reflecting on the changes made ahead of the 2024-25 school year.

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. During an interview with WDRB in December 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.

Admitting the first day was unacceptable and the reality JCPS would not be able to hire enough bus drivers to meet the transportation plan's need, the Jefferson County Board of Education made a contentious decision in April 2024: cut transportation for students not attending their reside and choosing to attend magnet programs/schools, traditional schools or Academies of Louisville programs. An exception was made for Central and Western high schools, which both have a 75% threshold of students on free or reduced lunch.

Just three days before the start of the school year, JCPS is reminding families to continue checking the bus teller portal, saying there could be changes up until the first day.

Families can also call 485-ride for any bus stop questions and use the Edu Log app to track their student's bus.

"For parents and caregivers on the first day of school, please ... give everyone some grace," Fulk said Monday. "It's a new routine for a lot of people. So I'm sure that there will be some some backups "

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