It’s two months into the 2022-23 academic year and for some local school districts issues with buses haven’t entirely gone away as hoped. But school officials say they’re doing the best they can with a difficult situation.
In the Kingston City School District, the first day of school saw nine of their 23 Kingston High School routes not operate.
“It’s unacceptable, is what it is,” Padalino said in an interview with Hudson Valley One on Thursday, September 8, one day after the start of the school year. At the time, Padalino pledged to correct the issue, and at a meeting of the Board of Education held on November 2, he said that while things aren’t back to normal, the district is doing the best it can.
“From the beginning of the year to now, we seem to have it stabilized,” Padalino said. “We still have a few hiccups here and there, and a lot of that is around issues with drivers being sick or drivers…being hurt, those kind of things. Just this week we have about 13 bus drivers who were out for the three companies that we use, but we have been able to put things together.”
The KCSD primarily leases bus service from three different companies to assure coverage for Kingston High, a pair of middle schools, seven elementary schools, and its pre-K hub at the Meagher Building. Padalino said the district’s transportation department works closely with the bus companies to ensure that things run as smoothly as possible even when routes have to be reconfigured on the fly in case of widespread driver absences.
“We’re going to have hiccups, but we’re much better off than we were at the beginning of the school year,” he said. “We have all of our routes covered. The dismissal times at Kingston High School which were such a problem at the beginning of the year, we have those covered at this point. So we’re getting there.”
Saugerties minimizes disruptions
The Saugerties Central School District is experiencing similar hiccups, with driver shortages still impacting service, but with a system in place to try and minimize disruptions as much as possible.
“I have an amazing transportation department, and one of the things we’ve worked on is getting out in front of this as much as we can,” said SCSD Superintendent Kirk Reinhardt in an interview last week with Hudson Valley One. “So as soon as we know there’s a double-up of a route or a route that has to be changed, we’re working very hard on getting those notifications out to parents in our buildings as soon as possible if we have to combine routes.”
Reinhardt acknowledged that there have been days where the district’s three-tiered bus rollout has been hit with delays, but said parents and district staff have been helpful in ensuring things run as smoothly as possible, even when service is upset.
“We’re working really hard with our building leaders and our support staff so when the buses do arrive, to make sure the buses are safely and properly loaded and then they can continue on with their route,” Reinhardt said, adding that it’s difficult to compare what’s happening in the present to bus service prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which shuttered schools for months before a staggered reopening during the 2020-21 school year.
“Don’t forget, for a while there we were remote and then for a while we were bringing half our students in,” Reinhardt said. “And then even when we came back to full time we didn’t have a percentage of families, I don’t know the exact number, that drove their students in…So it’s been a couple years since we had…everybody getting on the bus; and all of our sports are back and field trips and everything. So it’s kind of hard to compare to the last couple years for sure.”
Reinhardt said the district has to respond with urgency when busing problems arise.
“If we have a couple drivers that call in sick that morning we have to react really quickly and get that information out as soon as we can,” he said. “We’ve been pretty lucky so far but the weather’s going to change and we don’t want students standing out any longer than they need to for the buses.”
Reinhardt said that even with persistent busing issues, there have been very few instances of kids arriving late for school.
“We’ve been able to get our students in on time,” he said. “The fact that our high school runs are first, there’s always more flexibility in elementary schedule due to the fact that a lot of our students pick up breakfast and we have more flexibility in an elementary schedule than obviously you do in a high school that has to follow the bell schedule.”
But Reinhardt added that further improvements have to be made.
“Obviously it’s difficult to operate under this kind of circumstance,” he said. “What we’re doing right now is not sustainable forever. So what are checkpoints we can put in place to be more proactive in — if this route is canceled, these are our double-ups — and get that information out to the parents?”
Like Kingston, Saugerties contracts with different bus companies for service at Saugerties High and Junior High, as well as at its three elementary schools.
“Our bus companies are recruiting and we have some new drivers,” Reinhardt said. “They’re doing well, and I think we’re getting in the right direction. But it’s something I think that holistically the state needs to look at.”
Electric buses on the horizon
Not all local districts are fully covered through leases with private bus companies. Both Onteora and Rondout Valley are set to receive millions of dollars to purchase electric buses through the first round of the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Bus Program, which was created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
In Kingston, Padalino said there was hope that future funding might help school districts who don’t own and operate their own service.
“What I’m just hearing is that the next round of that type of grant funding may be going to our contracted bus companies,” he said.