LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) needed to get students to and from school on Thursday without having similar transportation issues that bought down back-to-school excitement last August.
Bus drivers spent days practicing new handcrafted routes, created by the district’s new internal routing team, leading up to this year's first day of school.
Superintendent Marty Pollio indicated earlier in the week that the practice days showed promising results and had built confidence amongst leaders that the district would have a smoother time getting students to and from school. He expected the last drop off to be around 7:30 p.m.
The last JCPS student was dropped off at their house by 7 p.m., according to the district. A spokesperson added that 98% of bus riders had been dropped at their bus stops by 6:30 p.m.
That's hours earlier compared to last year, when transportation issues caused the last student to get home around 10 p.m.
Pollio answered questions after the last students were dropped off, and praised the work his team did.
"We've got some work to increase efficiencies, we've got some buses that we have that are overcrowded," he said. "Finally we've got some traffic patterns at our schools that we're gonna have to improve on. Some are just always gonna be difficult traffic patterns based upon the fact that the streets they're on, and the amount of people that are coming."
Smooth first day, but not perfect
Dozens of parents told WHAS11 buses arrived on time in the morning to pick up their students. Although there were some delays getting students home, across the board buses arrived nearly on time.
David Russ told WHAS11's Travis Breese his daughter's bus arrived 40 minutes after it was supposed to, but enjoyed being able to track where they were using the district's bus tracking app.
“I mean it’s frustrating. They’re doing better than they were last year," he said. "If 30 minutes isn’t too bad, they can get that down 20, 10, on time in the next couple of weeks I’ll be pretty happy.”
The biggest issue, however was the long lines of parents waiting to drop-off and pick-up their students.
JCPS Board of Education Chair Corrie Shull was among those in line Thursday afternoon waiting nearly two hours to pick up his daughter. Even still, he's optimistic about what he saw.
"Everything is running, not perfectly, but pretty smoothly considering all of the changes made," he said during a live interview with WHAS11.
Lines of parents picking up and dropping off students were expected to be heavier than usual this year since buses were no longer going to most magnet and traditional schools as part of JCPS’ new transportation plan.
"Every first day of school you have long car rider lines," Shull said, giving the rollout of JCPS' new transportation plan an overall B+. "Everybody is learning a new routine."
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