LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Friday was the end of the first full week of school for Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) parents.
Many had sighs of relief, because their bus stop issues had improved or been solved.
"The fact that they now have this app, which takes a lot of guess work out about where your child is is great. I can see that now alleviating," Berkley Collins, who is a parent to two kids in the district, said.
Collins couldn't get an afternoon bus stop for her 1st grader Arai for multiple weeks. This caused her to have to miss the return to school on Friday, Aug. 18. However, Collins said this week the problem was remedied.
She had a friend who is a JCPS teacher tell her the district has assistant superintendents for different "zones" and she reached out to that person for help. She said she's done interviews with almost every local media outlet and two national outlets, and she was very frustrated.
Assistant Superintendent LaMesa Marks-Johns did get a p.m. bus stop for Arai, and she successfully took the bus home Thursday.
"I had to take matters into my own hands. I used the tools that JCPS gave me, and they did not work for me. And I left numerous messages, and these people could see these messages I was leaving for days and there was just empty words," Collins said.
Another person who didn't have success with the bus stop request forms or 485-RIDE was Pam Lott, who is a legal guardian to a student at Seneca High School. Her student Hannah didn't have a bus stop for a.m. or p.m. for multiple weeks and she got the situation remedied this week by calling Seneca repeatedly.
"The school is who gave it to her. I called 485-RIDE 4-5 times. All they would tell me was that I was on a list for high priority, but there were still thousands of kids," Lott said.
She also said that Hannah's p.m. bus gets home around 6:30 p.m., which is too late for her to go to work. They are looking at Uber or Lyft to get her home.
A JCPS spokesperson said the 485-RIDE line has been used on a temporary basis every school year since 2011. It was scheduled to be open until Aug. 16 this year, but was kept open until Aug. 24 because of so many parent issues. The district also significantly increased its staffing this year.
In addition, the spokesperson said that they've communicated to parents that it was closing, and they should now contact their child's school or the district transportation team for any remaining issues.
"When you call the compound, it transfers to the transportation line. So, are we gonna have a lot of back up issues because the line's gonna start dropping on parents again? Are we gonna have the same scenario as first week?" Collins said.
While 485-RIDE didn't work for her, she does think the district should have kept it open a few more days/weeks as a resource.
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