Council Rock Parents Fuming Over Busing Fiasco

This story was updated at 2 p.m. to include comment from Council Rock School Board President Andy Block.

NEWTOWN, PA — The Council Rock School District has been plagued with significant issues surrounding transportation since the first day of school, and signs indicate those problems remain more than two weeks later.

Problems include long wait times, missed pickups, unsafe bus stops, and overcrowded buses. Some parents report children sitting on laps due to crowding and buses arriving up to an hour late.

The district says the issues are due to a shortage of drivers on the part of its busing company, First Student.

In addition to the updates offered on the district's official Facebook page, the issue has dominated the popular Council Rock Parents Facebook page since Sept. 3, which was the first day of school.

Council Rock Superintendent Robert Fraser has issued daily communications on the matter, saying the district continues to work with First Student to remedy the situation.

However, many parents appear to be losing their patience.

"These updates are such a waste. Our bus has been 25-30 min late each afternoon with no improvement. I have friends who write to transportation daily, and each person gets the same response back," one parent commented on the Council Rock Parents Facebook page after a lengthy Sept. 17 update from Fraser was shared.

In his most recent update, issued Sept. 18, Fraser said the transportation team will currently focus "exclusively" on improving timing issues for specific buses that have been consistently late.

"This work has been hard for the team to adequately address while largely addressing concerns one-by-one over the past several days," Fraser said.

There are four employees in Council Rock's transportation department, all of whom work under the district's Director of Business Administration, Bill Stone.

Fraser has publicly debunked the theory that the transportation complications have been caused by the recent redistricting. "The impetus behind the changes was a shortage of bus drivers that we have historically experienced from First Student," he said in the Sept. 4 update.

"We also believed that, in theory, standardizing the stop locations would ultimately improve the customer experience and eliminate stop location confusion across levels," that update continued.

Council Rock School Board President Andy Block said he believes the busing challenges have been caused by a combination of new route implementation and an acute driver shortage.

"Redistricting had nothing to do with these issues," Block said.

Feedback from administration, school staff and community members indicates redistricting has been successfully implemented, Block said. "Unfortunately, a lot of great work against that project is being overshadowed by the bus issues."

Block said Fraser and his team are working "non-stop" to address the busing concerns.

Fraser has pledged that the issues will be corrected, and has offered an action plan and daily communication on the progress.

A key component in fixing the situation is modifying all elementary bus routes to ensure there are not too many students at each stop and that all stops are safe for students, Fraser noted.

"This route modification work will occur at one school at a time, with a targeted completion date for all schools on Friday, September 27. As routes are completely modified for an individual school, we will immediately implement that school’s new routes. Thus, implementation of the new routes will be staggered, as we do not want to delay implementation at some schools so that all ten can be implemented at once," Fraser said.

"You will continue to hear from us each day until all modified elementary routes have been implemented."

As of this week, some parents are reporting improvements, but others say they continue to have issues.

On Sept. 16, the Council Rock Parents Facebook page posted the following question: "How was transportation this morning?"

The inquiry generated 50 comments, with parents reporting mixed results.

"Late again. I’m not sure my son has been on time to school yet. I’ve emailed transportation and no reply," one parent said.

Another said: "Spoke to transportation this morning as my daughter's bus was again 20 minutes late to the bus stop...the route was created last week and has been late 5 out of the 6 days so far. We were told there is no dedicated bus driver yet. Transportation also was not aware that their bus was late."

But several others noted improvements in bus pick up times and approval of amended stops.

Multiple parents have expressed that they'll be attending Thursday's school board meeting to discuss their concerns, which begins at 7 p.m. at the Chancellor Center, 30 N. Chancellor St.

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