LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Jefferson County Public Schools leadership said Monday they're confident in the plan to get students to and from school on their first day back Thursday, promising the brand new plan is a step forward a year after chaos enveloped the start of the year.

In a back-to-school news conference Monday, JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio said students will be back in school Thursday despite the district's argument in federal court Friday that the first day could be pushed to November if a temporary restraining order is granted in a civil rights lawsuit filed in June by two parents.

The lawsuit was filed June 20 by Mary Bledsaw and Taryn Bell, who said their kids, who are set to attend Male High School, Central High School and Whitney Young Elementary School in August, may now have to enroll in less desirable neighborhood schools due to a lack of bus service.

The lawsuit claims the district's bus plan, passed in April, has a disproportionately negative effect on students of color and violates their civil rights.

Pollio said if the judge sides with the families in that lawsuit, it would change things but he believes parents have nothing to worry about.

"It would be a huge lift. There is no doubt," he said of the district's next move if its new plan was struck down by the court. "The narrative that all we would have to do is push a button is not the case, because they've been working seven days for two months, and this goes back to April when they started. This is not an easy lift."

Outside the federal courthouse Friday, Louisville attorney Teddy Gordon, who's representing Bledsaw and Bell, disputed the testimony from JCPS Chief Operations Officer Rob Fulk, saying district leadership is exaggerating and that it's "not true at all" that the judge granting a TRO would delay the school year.

"All they have to do is push a button," Gordon said. "They have the same number of drivers they did at the end of last year. All they have to do — although it's different starting times — is reinstate the plan they had at the end of the year."

A ruling from a judge will take a couple of weeks, so JCPS said — while school will start on time — it's preparing backup options if an injunction is ruled and the entire bus system must be reworked.

'This this is not an easy lift.'

'We started from the ground up'

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," 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."

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. 

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.

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 "

This story will be updated.

JCPS Back-to-School Coverage:

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