HOUSTON, Texas — A father of a Fulshear High School freshman is frustrated after he said his daughter gets home from school one to two hours after she gets out of class - all because she’s waiting on her bus.
He knows there’s a driver shortage, but said something needs to be done.
Trey Giglio said he’s constantly getting messages from his daughter about the bus being late to pick her up. He said she gets out of class at 3:40 p.m., but is usually still waiting for the bus to pick her up an hour later.
“The inconsistency is the biggest issue right now," Giglio said.
He said it puts her home late in the evening, many times it’s almost dark. On Friday, he said she didn’t get home until 6:00 p.m.
Tuesday, she was home at 5:15 p.m. - she said that was earlier than usual. Giglio said this can’t go on.
“Her time is spent between school and homework and nothing else in the extra. There’s no extra time for her at the end of the day," Giglio said.
A bus sits alongside the road next to the high school, advertising the open bus driver positions for Lamar CISD.
In a statement, the district acknowledged the delays:
"The bus driver shortage is a nationwide issue that we (and other districts) have been battling for a while now.
Being a fast-growth district, we are transporting 3,000 more students this year than last year.
And, being a two tiered-system, doesn’t help. We have several comeback routes causing students to either be late to school or arrive home much later in the evening than we prefer.
…all because we can’t hire enough drivers to cover all of the routes that we need.
A comeback route is after a driver has completed a route to campus; they then return to run a bus route that does not have a driver. In the morning, the comeback routes cause students to miss instructional time; in the afternoon, they do not arrive home until 5:30 pm or later.
But, we have a solution. We are moving to a four-tiered system which eliminates the need for some of the routes that we currently have. We are hopeful that once we implement this significant change, we will not be at the mercy of limited drivers.
For a district of our geographical size and enrollment, we can improve student transportation by adjusting our school day hours. In fact, all the districts in our surrounding area operate on three- four- or five-tier system and with considerably less square mileage.
In addition to the nationwide driver shortage, we are currently transporting 3,000 more students than this time last year causing more comeback routes. To get students to and from school safely, the transportation department is required to schedule comeback routes and do turnarounds when there are not enough drivers or buses.
Moving to a four-tier system will allow us to continue to provide transportation to all students who currently receive it. Our district would be able to transport students in a timely manner without eliminating any routes. At the February Board Meeting, the Lamar CISD Trustees approved new school hour. We have designed the following four-tier system, which will be implemented at the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year. This shift ensures that we have enough drivers for each route and eliminates the need for comeback routes."
New Hourly Schedule:
7:15 AM to 2:40 PM Elementary (Group A)
7:45 AM to 3:10 PM Elementary (Group B)
8:25 AM to 3:50 PM High School
9:05 AM to 4:30 PM Middle School & Junior High
We asked the district to break down the two-tiered vs. four-tiered system. This is their response:
"The two-tier system allows drivers to complete two routes in the morning and afternoon. The average route is between 25 to 35 students. Lamar CISD's current system is elementary schools in tier one and secondary schools in tier two. The average driver transports 50 to 70 students each morning and afternoon.
The four-tier system allows drivers to complete up to four routes in the morning and afternoon. The four-tier system allows the same number of drivers to transport twice the number of students. The four-system elementary schools are divided into tier one and the other half into tier two. The high schools are tier three, and middle/junior high schools are tier four. The average driver would transport 100 to 140 students each morning and afternoon."
Giglio said a fix can’t come soon enough.
“Reach out to the parents, find a way. Even if they started some kind of car pooling with the parents that do pickup, whatever. Just come up with something consistent," Giglio said.
But his daughter told KHOU she’s not sure the new system will change anything for her, saying she would also like the district to put more effort into hiring more drivers and maybe even increasing the incentives.