Boston City Council addressed parental concerns after Boston Public School buses arrived late, or not at all, to transport students on the first day of school during its Wednesday council meeting.
About two-thirds of school buses arrived late for the first day of school last Thursday morning, according to the Boston Globe.
Buses typically run late on the first day as drivers adjust to new routes, but the on-time arrival rate was the worst first-day showing reported by the district in the last nine years.
Councilor Ed Flynn introduced an order to discuss BPS transportation during the first week of school. Flynn spoke with parents of children attending two South End public schools, who “complained” about buses arriving an hour late or not arriving at all to pick up their children for the first day of school.
While some students were eventually picked up, many parents had to make alternative arrangements to transport their children to and from school when their buses did not arrive, Flynn said.
The district also rolled out a new real-time BPS bus tracking app called Zum this year, but Flynn said parents experienced difficulties with it as well.
For instance, a parent waited 45 minutes for the bus while tracking it on Zum, “only for the app to become unavailable.” Their child was on the school bus for “over two hours” on the way back home and provided the bus driver with directions.
City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune said she agrees that implementing new features like Zum comes with “a lot of pitfalls,” but hopes this will strengthen the system as a whole.
“The delays are disruptive for families, and we’ve been seeing that,” Louijeune said. “Hopefully, we have these humps in the beginning that will lead to greater efficiencies in the end.”
Councilor Erin Murphy said having “66% of all buses” arrive late to school is an “embarrassment,” especially when the City “invests approximately $130 million annually” in school transportation.
Murphy said “as a former teacher for decades,” she understands the first few days of school are already “nerve-wracking,” so students experiencing delays and not knowing whether they’ll make it to school “is not acceptable.”
“I know we have many angry parents, but we should also have a very angry Council and an angry administration that wants answers for these families and our students,” Murphy said.
Councilor Julia Mejia said BPS transportation delays need to be resolved for residents like working single mothers who need “the City to function in ways that are going to get people to where they need to be.”
“That’s money out of her pocket if she needs to take the day off of work to get her kids to school,” Mejia said.
Mejia said she looks forward to participating in a “collaborative effort” to ensure BPS does not “fall short in delivering reliable transportation” to students.
City Councilor Enrique Pepén said BPS is the first, and is supposed to be the best, public school system in the U.S., so the families it serves deserve better.
“Parents deserve this, our families deserve this, our schools deserve this and everyone in this chamber deserves this to get it right,” Pepén said. “[Transportation is] not perfect at the moment, but I know we can get there, and I think that if we work together … we’ll get there.”
