DISD’s busing is a clown show

Dallas ISD’s Student Transportation Services (STS) is a clown show.

This school year starts my eighth year of enduring poor busing service. This year started with a comedy of failures, and STS slashed its bus-stop count.

STS had the whole summer to get everything right. They also had a full week of route-running under their belt: the first grade of each school was in session a week before all other grades.

As is DISD STS’s custom, school-year start is a series of failures:

• On days 1 and 2, the bus driver declined to check student temperatures, even denying that it’s her responsibility. (See above video. It may not be fully intelligible in the video due to other noise, but the driver both says 1. she has no temperature sensor and 2. it is someone else’s responsibility to check student temperatures.)
• On day 1, five kids on the route were abandoned at their school. DISD sent a too-small bus. It had less capacity than the number of students who entered the bus that morning at just one stop!
• On day 2, despite a promise made to me late on day 1 by a director at the Lawnview Service Center, DISD continued sending a too-small bus. Bus was overloaded per one-student-per-seat rules, and had wrong number on placard.
• On days 1-3, the bus was missing from the My Stop app.
• While STS finally added a way for parents to contact them in writing, the feature has a confusing interface, so it will block many parents from submitting concerns.
• STS continues to direct parents to school staff for matters that are STS’s responsibility, including but not limited to questions about routes.

It gets worse.

Last year, in Dallas ISD to worsen bus service and fix no problems, I predicted DISD STS was going to turn the screws on parents. They exceeded my cynical expectation: they are now twisting the knife!

DISD STS deleted almost a third of all choice-school bus stops!

DISD STS’s “make things better by making it much, much worse” bus-hub proposal is now our reality.

Transportation is a crucial service. It should not be a clown show. Check out my Improvement plan for DISD Student Transportation Services (busing).