CYPRESS, Texas — It's now day 2 of being back in the classroom for students and staff at Cy-Fair ISD, the third largest school district in Texas.
The question: Would drop-off and pickup lines be any better on Tuesday after we received multiple emails from parents frustrated with the district's new transportation plan?
CFISD dropped 79 bus routes this year and says the change affects around 33,000 students.
Parent Ashley Abernathy said she went into the school year already worried and said Monday and Tuesday proved why. She has one child in pre-K who she drops off at one location in the morning. She has another child who's a fifth-grade student at Ault Elementary.
Last year, her son had a bus route. This year, he doesn't. Abernathy said she understands since they live less than a mile away, but also tells us there are now far more students in this neighborhood walking or riding bikes to and from school.
That, combined with a very long drop-off and pick-up line is causing traffic jams in and around district schools.
“So many students, so many cars,” she said, describing the line. “So, it’s like hard looking left, right, left, right and then nobody kind of knew who goes next or who's to go next. I just felt like it was like, you're sitting in a death trap.”
Abernathy said she and her husband decided to let their son walk to school this year and she met him to walk back home. She's hoping there will also be more traffic guards to help ease what she called chaos before and after school.
Abernathy said the pickup line for the elementary school goes beyond the school parking lot and into the streets of the neighborhood, which she said already has a steady flow of traffic with folks trying to get in and out.