Communication and logistical errors troubled District 99 busing company, First Student, resulting in problems with scheduling and transporting students to DGN in the first three weeks of school.
“The second day of school I got picked up from my bus stop at 8:50 and I did not get to school until about 9:20. So I ended up missing all of first period and some of second period. Then the rest of the week the bus did not come at a consistent time,” said sophomore Maddy Broniarczyk.
Another experience faced by junior Syeda Hassan went initially unreported to the bus dispatch until investigated by the Omega.
“A smoky smell was coming from the floor of the bus and maybe the exhaust pipe. He [the bus driver] went outside and told us to wait on the bus while he checked it out. He was outside for a minute, came back inside and said ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong,’ and just started driving. I was kind of scared,” Hassan said.
In an Omega email survey of 166 students, 67% of the students who responded to the survey experienced busing problems within the first three weeks of school compared to the 43% of last year.
The problems came amid Community School District 99 switching back over to First Student after using Westway Coach for three years. A move forced when Westway Coach dropped out of its five year contract two years early. When contacted regarding why they dropped the contract, a representative from Westway Coach elected to give no comment.
District 99 began bidding among various busing companies and was, by law, obligated to choose the lowest charging bidder, First Student for $5.75 million until summer 2017. This increased transportation costs by more than $660,000.
Following this switch, First Student began practicing full-day routes on Aug. 19.
“We had a bus schedule that we agreed upon. On Aug. 19 we had a test run. So the drivers would all run their routes as if it was a normal work day for them. And everything seemed fine. The next day we had our freshman orientation. That was a full bus run for us to pick up all the freshman and bring them to school and that went fine,” said associate principal Ken Sorensen.
“Our first day of school with the double schedule, that’s a crazy day to begin with for any bus company, new or not. So we had some problems that day, we had problems on Tuesday and Wednesday with a lot parents calling saying the bus didn’t come,” continued Sorensen.
An email was sent Aug. 26 from principal Scott Kasik to parents and students about bus issues. The notice apologized for the many bus difficulties and problems that went on.
Following these problems has been what appears to be a lack of communication between First Student and DGN concerning various incidents. When interviewed regarding the smoking bus, Sorensen said he had not been notified by First Student about the incident. After the interview he later contacted them and said that the driver had not contacted the bus dispatch.
“My understanding is that First Student met with the drivers the first weekend of this first day and told them to run new routes [without telling us]. Once we discovered that, we told the bus companies that the drivers have to go back to the originally published times that we agreed upon, that was a week into it…This is the third time these bus drivers are getting new start information from First Student and we had to communicate to families here’s the new bus schedule, the new times that are going to be effective Sept. 8,” said Sorensen.
Another email was sent Sept. 5 informing DGN families that starting Sept. 8 adjusted bus routes were to be put into effect.
“The routes that we published were different from the times that they ran that first day, so we had to go back with the bus companies saying ‘No, you need to run those times as you told us you’d run them,’ that had to be communicated to all the bus drivers so it was kind of a messy start in that sense,” Sorensen said.
Sorensen also noted that logistically, some routes simply didn’t work until further restructuring was done.
“We have one route, 17, that can’t get here before 3:40. It’s not the driver’s fault, because that driver is dropping off a bus load of Kindergarteners from another route and the earliest he can get here is 3:40. The bus company needs to pair this driver with another route, that’s what we requested and what we’re waiting for to resolve this issue,” Sorensen said.
As of the time of this writing bus 17 has had its routing problem fixed.
That said, First Student did work closely with Sorensen when contacted and District 99 and First Student did have several meeting in order to fix the busing issues.
“I think it is important to mention that First Student was responsive to all of the daily requests/issues/concerns and worked closely with us to understand the problems we were experiencing during the first three weeks of school,” said Sorensen.
After the adjustments, Sorensen is confident the new busing system will work smoothly for the rest of the school year
“So now we’re working on timing the routes and they’re making sure they have permanent bus drivers who know the routes… bus companies have a hard time finding permanent drivers because companies are very competitive, there’s a lot of turnover,” Sorensen said.
“We changed the start times. Many of the start times are 5 to 10 or 15 minutes earlier than they were originally, so we’re hoping that’ll help with the logistics in the morning. Now it’s a matter of getting rid of stops we don’t need [stops with no students],” Sorensen said.
“We’re at the point now where things have settled down, buses are on time, and we’re not getting phone calls…Once the dust settles, I’m confident we’re going to have a good rest of the year concerning busing,” Sorensen said.
Note: Attempts to contact the Westmont branch of First Student regarding questions were immediately deferred to the corporate headquarters in Cincinnati, from which there has been no response as of the writing of this article. Similarly, when attempting to contact First Student regarding the same topic, the Chicago Tribune noted no response from a request for a comment.
Katie Callaghan | Feature Editor
