LOUISVILLE, Ky. — As Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) welcomed back more than 26,000 high schoolers, elementary school parents are reporting significant delays in their kids' morning buses leading to missed instruction.
Leslie Hartness tells WHAS11 that for a third straight school day on Monday, her grandson, Josiah, had to give up waiting for his morning bus in southern Jefferson County, after already missing more than a half hour of class time.
Josiah is a 4th grader at Kenwood Elementary School. On Monday, the school district said four of the seven buses that take kids to Kenwood Elementary arrived before the start of class in the morning, meaning three buses were late.
Hartness says her grandson's bus has been late each of the first three days of school, and the family hasn't even gotten a chance to see just how late he'd be if they kept waiting.
"So, we just decided to go ahead and take him in," Hartness said.
This comes as JCPS officials say they hope the new bus tracking app will be available to families by the end of the week.
Hartness and her husband say the new bus tracking app can't come soon enough for families.
"It's needed. It could reduce people's wait times because they could sit and monitor it, and know when they have to leave to go to the bus stop," Hartness' husband said.
Over at Farnsley Middle School, Anise Mason says her 7th-grade granddaughter, Chancia, missed most of the first period by the time she arrived at school at 9:22 a.m.
"That's quite unfortunate because they're just getting started," Mason said. "No child should be waiting an hour for a bus to come."
Mason is unhappy her granddaughter had to wait that long, especially given her bus stop at South Crums Lane and Dover Road doesn't have a sidewalk for kids to wait.
"I don't think it's a good safety situation at all," Mason said.
A JCPS spokesperson told WHAS11 they expect pick-up and drop-off times to "smooth out" over the next couple of weeks.
JCPS officials said they're working to eliminate "No Show" routes by Wednesday, August 23. We're told each bus driver reports the stops where no kids show up.
But parents have told us, they worry it won't be accurate because of the number of families opting to drive their kids to school because of delays. They're crossing their fingers that their children's bus stops don't get dropped.
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