HAYS COUNTY, Texas — Hays CISD has had a bumpy start to the 2018 school year.
“We had an unusually rough start on our transportation system, and we are still adding in some bus routes to increase the capacity and improve the pickup times for some people,” said Tim Savoy, Hays CISD Chief Communication Officer.
Savoy said they tackled some problems already.
“The problems we experienced last week: crowding, late buses and no air conditioning on some of the buses,” said Savoy.
Savoy said all of the buses have A/C. However, there was an idle rule in place that had drivers turn off the bus if they were stopped for more than five minutes. Savoy said they have since changed that rule to keep the buses cool.
Savoy said the overcrowding fix—adding more routes—impacted the timing for pick-up and drop-off.
“There's a certain percentage of students who are eligible who will not ride the bus, and we got that wrong in some cases, in quite a few cases,” said Savoy of the overcrowding issue that caused the school district to add more bus routes.
Savoy said to expect delays through the week, as it takes time for buses to fine-tune their new routes.
“We've fixed a lot of the problems, we've reduced a lot of the concerns, but for the people who are still experiencing problems, I know they're frustrated, they have to be frustrated. It's the second week of school, and we apologize to those folks that are still experiencing those problems,” said Savoy, adding he hopes the problems will be fixed by the end of the week.
Savoy encouraged parents to report bus problems to the transportation department. He said you have to know the bus number and the campus it’s going to so the department can figure out which route it’s on when the problem occurred.