LAKEWAY, Texas — On Aug. 2, Lake Travis ISD sent an email asking parents to register their students for school bus pickups by Aug. 6, just four days later. Thousands of families within the school district missed the deadline, in part, because the paragraph was at the bottom of a "Return to School" email instead of a separate email entirely.
“I’m a fixer, and I can’t fix this," Rhonda Davis, the director for LTISD Transportation, said. "There are days where I have 50 people on hold, 65 messages to answer. I’ve cried on the phone along with parents. I’ve been cussed out. But I need to provide hope. We need hope right now.”
Davis has fielded thousands of calls over the past three weeks: parents begging for their kids to get a seat on a school bus, and others telling her and her staff they should all be fired. According to LTISD Assistant Superintendent for Operations Brian Bailey, he, the Transportation Department, and the communications department are all working together to rectify the issue for next year.
Davis suggested having an entirely new form for transportation questions.
"Right now, it's just one checkbox in the Return to School packet, 'Do you need a bus?'" Davis said. "It needs to be at least a few questions, it's own form: Do you need a bus? A.m., p.m., or both? Do you have an alternate form of transportation? Do you have an alternate address?"
Another problem has been the shortage of bus drivers.
Right now, 15 bus drivers are "running double waves" – basically making two trips down two different routes. Some students get left at school for hours after the day ends waiting for the second round of a bus to bring them home.
If Davis had a full staff of drivers, she could fill all 83 routes. To start the school year, she's only able to operate 55. On top of that, some of her own office and mechanic staff are driving buses to supplement staffing where possible, and are included in those 55 routes.
In response to the need for drivers and being "treated ugly" by some parents, a group of Lakeway parents have started raising money to show appreciation for the transportation staff.
"These people are going to quit if you continue to behave this way because they see these things on Facebook," Ashley Greer-Smoot said on Facebook.
Greer-Smoot has organized fundraising to host lunches for transportation staff, give them gifts, and little gestures of appreciation as the year goes on. Her efforts have already garnered more than $8,000 in donations.
"We might as well show them the love and respect that they deserve. They do one of the hardest jobs," Greer-Smoot said.
Greer-Smoot put together the first appreciation lunch together on Friday: salad, lasagna, and baked ziti for everyone in the transportation department, which sis just over 90 people. She plans on holding another sometime around Christmas, and then a third in the spring.
"We have definitely felt the love. Our hearts are full, they really are," Davis said. "We're not focusing on the negative. We're we're focusing on the positive, and it's all about these kids."
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