LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In December, Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) parents were given letters that transportation may change for most students next year.
One of those options included eliminating transportation to magnet schools, which could affect nearly 500 bus routes.
"It would be quite difficult for the parents that don't have transportation abilities or reliable transportation to get their kids to school," JCPS parent Gabrielle Chandler said. She has two students at JCPS schools.
Her daughter Claressa knows first hand how important transportation is to school.
"It's definitely going to be a huge impact because sometimes my bus doesn't even show up," Claressa said.
JCPS Chief of Communications Carolyn Callahan said 40 or more bus drivers callout a day. This means most days they have more routes than bus drivers.
"With 65,000 students being transported something has to give; we can't continue to go like this or our students are going to continue to miss instructional minutes," Callahan said.
Tuesday, the JCPS Board will consider transportation proposals that include transporting students to reside schools only, a hub where families take their students to or no change to transportation at all.
"That either means we need to find more bus drivers, or we need to cut back on the number of routes and the number of students we're transporting," Callahan said.
Parents like Dontay Penny at Central High School said the hub could be a traffic jam.
"You have people trying to get off to work, I can see that being a disaster too; just imagine the traffic of people trying to drop their kids off at a hub on time," said Penny.
His wife Shauntina feels the same way.
"It's going to be congested because you have kids coming from all over it's not just a district school," she said.
Until then, they're waiting patiently to see what the board decides on Tuesday, Feb. 13 at the Van Hoose Education Center.
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