Lee County parents frustrated by school bus delays in first week of classes

LEE COUNTY, Fla. — Some Lee County parents are raising concerns about school bus delays as the new school year gets underway.

One parent told us her daughter's bus arrived 49 minutes late on the first day and also experienced a delay during the afternoon pickup. Another parent reached out asking why students were getting home late.

Despite those complaints, the School District of Lee County says districtwide transportation is actually performing better than it was at this same point last year.

On-time morning arrivals hit 85% during the first week, up from 71% during the first week last year. Afternoon arrivals came in at 79%, compared to 72% the first week last year.

Rob Spicker, the district's transportation official, says the first few weeks are always an adjustment period.

He says several things contribute to early delays, including heavy back-to-school traffic, longer parent pickup and drop-off lines, new drivers learning their routes and younger students still figuring out their bus numbers and dismissal procedures.

During the entire first week, buses stop at every assigned stop even if no student is waiting there. Starting in week two, the district looks at actual ridership data and begins cutting stops where no one was picked up.

Every student scans on and off the bus, which lets transportation officials see which stops are being used, which buses are full and where routes can be combined or adjusted.

Spicker credits the district's Safe Start initiative for helping this year's first-week numbers come in 14 percentage points higher than last year. The district reduced school start times from four to three and created roughly an hour between routes, giving drivers time to finish one run before starting another.

The district expects weeks three and four to be when transportation really starts running at its best.

Spicker recommends parents use the district's Where's the Bus app to track their child's bus. He acknowledges the app can occasionally have glitches and says reported problems are looked into by the district or its vendor.

Transportation and schools also send texts and notices when buses are running late, though Spicker called the communication system "imperfect" and said staff's primary focus during a disruption is getting buses to students.

The district is also working on a bigger upgrade. It is in the process of selecting a vendor for new bus routing and optimization software, since Spicker says the current system is so outdated "we might as well do it on paper."

The new system will use computer modeling to find more efficient routes and Spicker says it should start coming online around November or December and be ready by January.

The district is using money generated from its school bus stop-arm camera program to pay for the new software. Spicker called it the district's "next big" transportation improvement.

Last school year, the district brought its bus on-time rate up to 98% by the end of the year, and officials say they expect this year's numbers to improve in the weeks ahead.