Transportation Services will stop making changes and updates to existing routes at the end of this month as the department shifts it focus to planning for the 2019-2020 school year.

Students with new transportation requests submitted after the cut-off date will be assigned to existing routes and stops.

“We began this school year with several challenges. Since that time, we’ve worked hard to address the concerns of parents and make changes as necessary,” Transportation Services General Manager John Wilcots IV said.

With planning already underway for the upcoming school year, Transportation Services is employing a proactive approach to address issues involving routing and scheduling. 

General Manager John Wilcots IV said the department will stop making routing changes for the current school year on April 1. This will allow the department to begin planning for routes for next year — well in advance of the first day of the 2019-2020 school year.  

“As we plan the bus routing for next school year, we want to make sure our students are not walking long distances and that they don’t have long wait times to board our buses,” Wilcots said. “The work that we will begin on April 1 is critical to ensuring the school year gets off to a smoother start next year.” 

With an eye toward the 2019-2020 school year, Transportation Services is restructuring its annual planning process, building in time to verify all routes and notify parents well ahead of the start of school.

The team will begin actively planning and scheduling next year’s routes in April — significantly earlier than in previous years — allowing the department to have a rough plan by the end of the school year. Bus drivers then will be tasked with doing real-time test runs in July to validate routes and their feasibility.

With the new schedule, the department will be able to conduct multiple route verifications and still notify parents several weeks before the first day of school, giving them plenty of time to review. Continue reading →