LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The last Jefferson County Public Schools' students riding the bus Thursday afternoon arrived home by 7 p.m. on the first day of school.

The district said by 6:30 p.m. that 98% of bus riders had been dropped off at their bus stops and by 6:48 p.m. there was only one bus on the road with four siblings on board.

Thursday morning, JCPS spokesperson Mark Hebert said the district's transportation team had a full practice run on routes Wednesday. Buses arrived on time at most stops Thursday morning, with some even arriving a few minutes earlier than expected. 

Nearly 100,000 students returned to class Thursday morning as the district put their new transportation plan to the test, parents waiting anxiously to see what time their children would get home. 

The district said all students were home by 7 p.m. Thursday.

This year, the district had about several thousand fewer students to transport. While the time students got home Thursday is drastically different from last year, when the last students were dropped off at nearly 10 p.m., some families had great days while others still struggled.

For JCPS mom April Embry, what ended in her first grade son home safe and sound didn't start as great.

"My second son's bus never showed up," she said Thursday.

Embry's son Jordan has a learning disability and is required to be on a specific bus for students in special education. After getting him to school on their own Thursday morning, Embry worried about drop-off. Wellington Elementary lets out at 4:20 p.m., and his expected drop-off time was 5:25 p.m.

But that didn't happen.

"Mad, upset, I want my son home," she said.

So Embry called the school, reached out to her son's teacher, and continued waiting as she checked the bus tracker app.

"It is 6:04, been texting his teacher. Said they should make him a car-rider, well we don't have that pleasure to make him a car-rider," she said.

Embry doesn't drive and her husband works during her son's school hours. Around 6:15 p.m. Thursday, she got ahold of the bus compound, who told her the bus was at Wellington picking up kids. 

At 6:20 p.m., her son's teacher told Embry the principal would drop him off.

"My baby should be home right now, he is probably hungry," she said.

Her son eventually made it home just before 6:45 p.m. Almost two and-a-half hours after school let out.

JCPS said Embry's son has been assigned a new bus and driver, who called her personally, as well as the compound staff who apologized for the first day miscommunication. But she still has nerves for Friday.

"We'll wait and see," she said. 

As for why her son's bus didn't show up Thursday morning, JCPS said it's not clear why the driver never stopped, and added that these things happen the first couple days of school. 

Embry does have an older son that is a freshman who attends Pleasure Ridge Park High School.

Embry said his bus was on time in the morning and afternoon.

Last school year, the last students were dropped off at nearly 10 p.m., prompting the district to cancel school for two days in an effort to resolve some of the issues. 

Since then, the Jefferson County Board of Education and Superintendent Dr. Marty Pollio have taken a lot of heat and worked on improvements to ensure that doesn't happen again this year.

"We’ve now had  a successful first day of school. I don’t know if redeemed is the right word, I feel like we’ve learned a great deal," Pollio told reporters Thursday evening. "All the systems we put in place were put in place because of last year. Don’t know we would have come to this much better solution, where we are right now, if we had not gone through that. So painful and something I would never want to go through again, but learned a lot from it and really improved from it.” 

JCPS leaders said Monday they've worked countless hours the past few months on the transportation plan, including using an internal routing team. 

For parents not satisfied with the district's first day of its new transportation plan, JCPS said it will get better with time.

"It's the second day, there will still be hiccups, but it will be a bit better," Pollio said. "We'll come back after the weekend and work on some efficiencies and hopefully by mid next week be in a routine." 

Among those changes — cuts to transportation for some students and another change in school start times.

The district said all students were home by 7 p.m. Thursday.

In April, the Jefferson County Board of Education voted to cut transportation to all magnet and traditional schools, with the exception of Central and Western high schools, which both have a 75% threshold of students on free or reduced lunch. 

When addressing longer car pool lines, Pollio said it is working with LMPD, who provides the district crossing guards, but said there is a shortage.

The district said a short-term fix, will be to use JCPS Police Officers to help with traffic control at some schools experiencing issues.

However, Pollio said the situation is not expected to go away entirely, given some schools location and set up.

"Don’t want to make it sound like tomorrow it's fixed, going to work to improve it but I think that’s our biggest improvement area," Pollio said. 

Those families will be eligible for stipends. The district said the stipends are taxable income, and may conflict with income-based benefits like SNAP. Parents with students who qualify for free and reduced lunches could receive $5 per day or $10 per school day to transport their child. 

Parents will sign up beginning the week of Aug. 26. Payments will begin the week of Sept. 9, and back payments from August will be completed by Sept. 23.

If a parent is eligible for $5 a day and has to transport two students to two different schools, they will receive $10 a day. If the parent is driving two children to one school, they will receive $5.

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.

This story may be updated.

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