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Post by crazy4scraps on Aug 26, 2024 15:08:26 GMT
My kid is a freshman this year and for the first time she has two totally different buses with two totally different stops for going to school and coming home. The morning pickup stop is about 1/3 mile from home in one direction, and the afternoon drop off bus stop is in a totally different place 1/2 mile from home in the other direction. The two different buses doesn’t really phase me, I get it they’re likely short staffed and still figuring out routes but the two different stops is just odd. Wouldn’t the district figure that if a kid is getting on the bus in one place it would make sense to drop them back off at the same place on the way home?  Do other districts do that? I don’t recall ever having two completely different stops when I took the bus to school back in the stone ages. Granted, she’s in high school and is completely capable of getting to or from either place, but I just take pity on the kid because after today (orientation) she will have a backpack that weighs about 25 lbs and her band instrument to lug back and forth. I’ll go get her, especially since it will be close to 100° today. 🥵 Update: In the four days since school started, DD has been the only kid getting picked up or dropped off at either of the two stops she was assigned to. The second day of school I ended up getting her from school myself because school closed early. By Wednesday, her drop off stop was moved closer to home, to the far end of our block (about a block and a half away from home), which is where her stop was last year. Today, I submitted a stop change request to move her morning pick up to the other end of our block, which is about 1/4 mile closer to the house than the assigned stop. This change wouldn’t affect any other students nor would it change the bus route or timing at all, it would just mean she is getting picked up five minutes sooner and so she doesn’t have to shlep her heavy backpack and her band instrument so far every day. Hopefully it will be approved. |
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Post by Lurkingpea on Aug 26, 2024 15:15:38 GMT
They might be trying to make it equitable. I wonder if the kids that have a longer walk in the morning when your cold has a shorter walk has a shorter walk in the afternoon?
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Post by compeateropeator on Aug 26, 2024 15:21:21 GMT
I don’t have a kid in school but back in the 70’s I had two different bus routes. The one in the morning picked me up in front of my house (I think I was on the orange bus route 😆) and in the afternoon I took the blue bus route and was dropped off at the end of my road and had to walk home from there.
I do know that in our area there is a SEVERE lack of bus drivers, like crippling, and school districts are having to be creative about covering routes. So maybe that is a factor also. Many of our schools have bumped up starting/training pay for bus drivers to 33.00 an hour.
Hopefully others will have better insight.
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snyder
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,346 
Location: Colorado
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Post by snyder on Aug 26, 2024 15:21:25 GMT
It might be safer to stop in the different places coming and going depending of the traffic flow. Maybe dropping them off directly across from where they pid them up is not ideal since the traffic flow is the opposite of what it is when going to school.
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breetheflea
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,591
Location: PNW
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Post by breetheflea on Aug 26, 2024 15:33:39 GMT
The afternoon buses here do the route they take in the morning backwards, so are on the opposite side of the street in the afternoon, maybe there's some traffic flow issue in your neighborhood?
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Post by crazy4scraps on Aug 26, 2024 15:38:49 GMT
It might be safer to stop in the different places coming and going depending of the traffic flow. Maybe dropping them off directly across from where they pid them up is not ideal since the traffic flow is the opposite of what it is when going to school. The afternoon buses here do the route they take in the morning backwards, so are on the opposite side of the street in the afternoon, maybe there's some traffic flow issue in your neighborhood? No, I don’t think that’s it. Both are two lane very low traffic suburban streets at any time of day. We live in a very quiet, land locked neighborhood that doesn’t have a lot of traffic in general. |
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Post by compeateropeator on Aug 26, 2024 15:48:11 GMT
The other thing, at least back in my day, was that the morning routes picked up all ages and dropped them off at them off at the different schools. Where our afternoon routes were not combined routes that I remembered. The grade school got out earlier and had separate routes than the highschool. So maybe that is it. At least that is my recollection from 50 years ago. 😂
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Post by crazy4scraps on Aug 26, 2024 16:02:11 GMT
They might be trying to make it equitable. I wonder if the kids that have a longer walk in the morning when your cold has a shorter walk has a shorter walk in the afternoon? This morning there were only the 9th graders on the bus for orientation day, so it will be interesting to see if there are any older kids taking the bus tomorrow / the rest of this week. Today she was the only one at the stop in the morning and I’ll see who (if anyone) gets off the bus when she does this afternoon. When the bus picked her up this morning there were only two other kids on it. Several of the older kids that we know in this neighborhood drive themselves to school and some have graduated already. |
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Post by crazy4scraps on Aug 26, 2024 16:06:29 GMT
The other thing, at least back in my day, was that the morning routes picked up all ages and dropped them off at them off at the different schools. Where our afternoon routes were not combined routes that I remembered. The grade school got out earlier and had separate routes than the highschool. So maybe that is it. At least that is my recollection from 50 years ago. 😂 That doesn’t happen here. It’s a huge district so the start times are staggered. Right now the one high school and the two middle schools start at roughly the same times (7:40-7:50) and the multiple elementary schools start about an hour later. There hasn’t ever been a mix of schools on one bus. ETA: Next year they are flipping the start times so the elementary kids will start earlier and the high school kids will start later with the middle schools in between. I’m looking forward to that because getting up at 6:00 am to jump start a night owl high schooler sucks! 🤣 |
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iowgirl
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,316
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Post by iowgirl on Aug 26, 2024 16:06:57 GMT
Our bus route was a rural route, so it stopped in front of your house always. Our lane was too steep to navigate in the winter, and there wasn't a good turn around spot for the bus, so they dropped at the end of the lane - but that is short walk up to the house.
By freshman year, my kids were driving, so no more bus.
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Post by iamkristinl16 on Aug 26, 2024 16:11:05 GMT
We have to fill out a form at the beginning of the year stating the address to and from school. I assume that for high schoolers it might not be different as often since they don’t go to daycare. But I wonder if it’s because of sports or people may give their kids a ride to school but not home and fewer people will be riding the bus to or from school.
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Post by melanell on Aug 26, 2024 16:12:16 GMT
I know in my parents' neighborhood the Middle School buses stop 2 different places in the am and pm. They've been doing that since I was in school, and I've noticed it's the same now different times when I've been at my parents' house. I never thought a thing about it.  |
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anniebeth24
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,780
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Post by anniebeth24 on Aug 26, 2024 16:15:14 GMT
Wondering if the route change takes into account the students who stay after school for assorted activities like sports. They would only ride in the morning, so a different route would work better for fewer students in the afternoon.
That said, I don't recall a district ever polling students/families to find out who needs what. Maybe it's based on previous averages.
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Post by bc2ca on Aug 26, 2024 16:19:13 GMT
I do think it is odd to not just do a reverse route at the end of the day and wonder if they are combining routes?
Do you commit to taking the bus both ways? If fewer kids take the bus home (car pooling to sports/other after school activities, parent available, kid needs a different route for work, care pick-up, etc.) they may combine routes and have 2 full buses instead of 3 at less than capacity.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Aug 26, 2024 16:25:32 GMT
We have to fill out a form at the beginning of the year stating the address to and from school. I assume that for high schoolers it might not be different as often since they don’t go to daycare. But I wonder if it’s because of sports or people may give their kids a ride to school but not home and fewer people will be riding the bus to or from school. We had to do that initially for elementary, but since then we haven’t had to fill it out again since she has always taken the bus. The transportation information basically auto populates since we haven’t moved. She has participated in various before or after school things (never sports though) so at different times of the year she would need a ride to or from school on certain days. This year it’s a whole different school and she doesn’t know yet which extracurriculars she wants to do other than pep band, so we won’t know which days she won’t be on the bus until those activities start (which is probably not for a couple weeks yet). Plus some clubs and groups only meet for one semester, so what she’s doing now might not be the same days she’s doing things after school in the spring (which would be the same situation for sports too, I’d imagine). |
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Post by crazy4scraps on Aug 26, 2024 16:38:11 GMT
Wondering if the route change takes into account the students who stay after school for assorted activities like sports. They would only ride in the morning, so a different route would work better for fewer students in the afternoon. That said, I don't recall a district ever polling students/families to find out who needs what. Maybe it's based on previous averages. There is a form you can fill out if you have a permanent situation change, we had to do that once when I had foot surgery and couldn’t walk my kid the three blocks to the bus stop in elementary. Or if the parents live in different houses and the kid is getting picked up or dropped off from different places on different days. But for seasonal things like sports or extracurriculars, they don’t ask about that because it’s always changing throughout the year. They do say that if a kid isn’t at the stop for so many days running, they’ll get dropped from the route. |
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Post by crazy4scraps on Aug 26, 2024 16:47:02 GMT
I do think it is odd to not just do a reverse route at the end of the day and wonder if they are combining routes? Do you commit to taking the bus both ways? If fewer kids take the bus home (car pooling to sports/other after school activities, parent available, kid needs a different route for work, care pick-up, etc.) they may combine routes and have 2 full buses instead of 3 at less than capacity. It’s assumed the kid will take the bus both ways unless another formal arrangement is made. This is for high school so daycare, parent availability, etc. isn’t an issue for the kids on her bus this year. They don’t ask about after school activities because other than pep band which started up practices in June, we don’t know ourselves which days she won’t be on the afternoon bus, and even with pep band there are a few days where no practice is scheduled when there otherwise would be on that day of the week. Most of the other after school groups don’t start up until the second or third week of school. My kid has never done school sponsored sports so I can’t speak to that. ETA: Because of all this we haven’t opted her *out* of taking the bus on any particular days, although there will be days when she won’t be on the bus. |
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Post by wordyphotogbabe on Aug 26, 2024 20:43:15 GMT
Hmmm, interesting! I've never heard of that before. We live on the district line so the other side of the street goes to a different system (that does not have busses). While I know of kids in the district who have communal bus stops, there are only 1 or 2 kids besides mine on this road that are picked up so the bus drives down the road in a way that the kids don't have to walk across traffic to get on and they all get picked up and dropped off at their own houses.
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Post by librarylady on Aug 27, 2024 15:58:56 GMT
Information from the dark ages...
A small bus picked us up and we went to the elementary school as well as other small buses. Then a large bus took us to the HS which was in a nearby town. Elementary ages, of course, stayed at the Elementary school and the older kids rode over to the HS.
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Post by karensay on Sept 2, 2024 20:05:56 GMT
This is my 9th year driving a School Bus. The first week or so is so crazy. I had only 20 kids sign up to ride, but 35 got on my bus that morning. And sometimes they sign up and never show up
More kids ride the bus in the afternoon than in the morning. Parents can drop them off on their way TO work, but the kids need to ride the bus home. Maybe that is why there are two different bus stops.
I have children that get on my bus that are NEW, and they do not know where they live and they do not know their phone numbers. School Admin to the rescue.
My riders are PreK through 5th grade.
We started school 1 AUG. Last week I got 5 new kids. So much for the seating chart!
Things are finally settling down. I will be retiring in January!!!
I do have a FANTASTIC Bus Aide, I don't know what I would do without her.
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Post by lisae on Sept 2, 2024 22:24:41 GMT
Information from the dark ages... A small bus picked us up and we went to the elementary school as well as other small buses. Then a large bus took us to the HS which was in a nearby town. Elementary ages, of course, stayed at the Elementary school and the older kids rode over to the HS. We did something similar for middle school except students rode with the elementary kids to the elementary school and then got on the middle school bus. The middle school bus passed right by my house so they picked me up and I didn't have to do the transfer. High school had its own buses but I had to go to the end of the road as they didn't go by my house. OP, I hope your change gets approved. My parents requested the change that let me be picked up by the middle school bus. Sometimes all you have to do is ask. |
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Post by epeanymous on Sept 2, 2024 22:49:44 GMT
My kids generally have had different morning and afternoon stops, but the stops are across the street and/or a block away from each other, so closer than you describe.
Our high schools don’t offer school bus transport now. High school kids take the public bus.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Sept 3, 2024 14:59:16 GMT
My kids generally have had different morning and afternoon stops, but the stops are across the street and/or a block away from each other, so closer than you describe. Our high schools don’t offer school bus transport now. High school kids take the public bus. We have no city buses in the area where I live (suburban/ semi rural), so that’s not an option. It’s either the school bus or parents (grandparents, carpool etc.) have to drive the kids to school depending on where they live. Kids less than two miles from school are on their own (walking or biking or carpool) unless there is a highway in between. I was surprised to read that some of the kids who have open enrolled will be added to bus routes starting next week if there is space on the bus closest to where they live. One of DD’s longtime friends moved just outside of the boundary to the south which is pretty far from school but open enrolled to stay with friends they’ve been with since pre-k, and I was almost sure their dad was going to have to drive them back and forth. |
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Post by crazy4scraps on Sept 3, 2024 15:20:58 GMT
Information from the dark ages... A small bus picked us up and we went to the elementary school as well as other small buses. Then a large bus took us to the HS which was in a nearby town. Elementary ages, of course, stayed at the Elementary school and the older kids rode over to the HS. We did something similar for middle school except students rode with the elementary kids to the elementary school and then got on the middle school bus. The middle school bus passed right by my house so they picked me up and I didn't have to do the transfer. High school had its own buses but I had to go to the end of the road as they didn't go by my house. OP, I hope your change gets approved. My parents requested the change that let me be picked up by the middle school bus. Sometimes all you have to do is ask. Thanks. I intentionally waited until the end of the first week before I submitted my stop change request to see if there would be anyone else at the stop that would be impacted by a change because I knew that would make a difference. As of this morning there hasn’t been anyone else yet so it would make sense to change her stop to make it a little more convenient for her, especially in the winter. We have no sidewalks here and very few street lights, so to go to that further away stop could mean walking quite a ways in the street on icy roads in the dark unless one of us drives her (which I totally would, but not every family has that luxury). She would be the only student impacted by the change and it wouldn’t change the route timing at all. Last year, the middle school bus driver didn’t officially change her stop but would drop her off at our driveway in the afternoons once he realized that the route went directly past our house which was super nice (the morning route came from a different direction so picking her up there wasn’t an option). I really do feel bad for the kid with all the heavy crap she has no choice but to haul back and forth every day, plus carry it around all day class to class. I swear, her backpack must weigh literally 25-30 pounds this year with all her notebooks, Chromebook, etc. in it. It’s a lot, even for a high school kid IMO. I don’t remember having to drag that much stuff around all day until I was in college and the lockers were inconveniently located in a basement tunnel. |
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Do other districts do that? I don’t recall ever having two completely different stops when I took the bus to school back in the stone ages.
