LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The discussion on how to fix Louisville's broken public school bus system has been an emotional ride full of detours and delays.

After a school year of severe bus delays and an inability to recruit enough drivers, the Jefferson County School Board met Tuesday evening at the Van Hoose Education Center to discuss the plan Jefferson County Public Schools formally recommended last week. The plan on the table would eliminate transportation for 14,000 students who attend magnet schools or programs, traditional schools, and students who attend Academies of Louisville programs that are not in their reside school.

But the board ultimately tabled a vote on the plan, citing new perspective from the results of an new audit of JCPS ordered by the board. In 248 pages, the report summarizes more than 200 interviews, reviews data and findings from school observations. It lays out why and how JCPS, and outside routing company AlphaRoute, failed students on the first day of school in August.

"I was furious," Cassie Kidd, a JCPS parent, said Wednesday of the delayed vote. "Why can't they just make a decision already?" 

The head of the district's transportation department is also refuting claims made in a recent audit of JCPS, specifically looking into the bus problems on the first day of school last August.

Relying on "gut feelings" about ridership, and "bad habits of working in silos," are just a few problems found when reviewing what went wrong with JCPS' transportation on Aug. 9, 2023, forcing the district to cancel school for a week. Prismatic Services, which conducted the audit, wrote that there was a disconnect between JCPS and AlphaRoute as they tried implementing guidelines for bus drop-off times. Then, the vendor didn't get the district all of the routes until later in the timeline than promised, giving drivers little time to actually test the routes and find other solutions to the lengthy routes, and other issues. 

A consultant for Prismatic recommended that the board not vote on Tuesday, advice a majority of the board members took.

"If you are making the changes, as some of the speakers said there really won't be any going back," Dr. Tatia Prieto, with Prismatic Services, said. "People will make decisions about where they're going to high school, that will be decided for four years. You will fundamentally alter the fabric of where the district is."

JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio agreed with delaying the vote, a chance to digest the audit, which was just made public Monday. But transportation plans are sitting idle.

"We're already behind three weeks," said Marcus Dobbs, executive administrator of transportation at JCPS.

In an email to board members, JCPS Chief Operations Officer Rob Fulk said he doesn't believe the district was "given a chance to respond to several incorrect statements last night ..." You can read his full letter below, which outlines seven ways in which he believes the audit was incorrect, including references to poor transportation, work ethic among district leadership and incorrect data:

Download PDF Rob Fulk Letter

If any plan is approved, the changes are expected to start in the fall at the beginning of the 2024-25 school year.

"I'd rather us take the due diligence rather than another knee-jerk reaction and decimate some schools," board member Gail Logan Strange said.

District spokesperson Carolyn Callahan said there a handful of key items JCPS needs to work on before the start of next year, including:

  • Routing
  • Creating bus stops
  • Determining depots
  • Building bus load counts
  • Verifying addresses
  • Timing stops for each run
  • Bidding routes
  • Practicing scenarios

"This work cannot be adequately worked on until the team knows what the plan is for transportation next year," Callahan said in an email Wednesday to WDRB News.

JCPS board member Chris Kolb said the delay on the vote could be very damaging.

"The audit was unexpectedly added to the board agenda at the last minute by the board chair and vice-chair," Kolb said Thursday. "This resulted in having to delay the transportation vote since we could not assess the validity of the auditor’s claims during the board meeting. I fear this delay could be very damaging. I am highly skeptical of multiple claims made by the auditor for several of the reasons mentioned by Dr. Fulk. However, I cannot simply reject the auditor’s claims without investigating them further, so I felt we should hold off on voting. In reviewing the audit again today I am even more skeptical, as evidence to support the auditor’s boldest claims is all but absent."

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