At the beginning of the school year, the bus to Sennett Middle School was about 20 minutes late picking up Jacob Wright's son.
“Then it kind of slowly got better,” Wright said Monday. “That’s the progression you’d expect. You’ve got a new school year, you’ve got a new set of drivers, you’ve got a new timetable.
“I was expecting some bumps in the road, but I was also expecting improvement over time.”
Monday, that improvement ground to a halt, as the bus on his son’s route simply didn’t show up. That left Wright, a Dane County supervisor, turning around on his way to Verona for work to pick his son up.
“Now that we can’t count on that (improvement), I don’t really know what to do,” Wright said, adding that he’ll likely drive his son to school, but that will leave him early or late many days.
Marilee Cronin’s son is on the same route. Cronin told the Cap Times she twice called the dispatch number for First Student, new to providing district yellow bus services this fall, and no one answered.
Her husband scrambled to pick up her son and a friend at a different stop and drive them to school, she said, and her family is “making different plans for my son at Sennett for the foreseeable future to get to school since we can’t trust the bus.”
“The lack of any communication from First Student is downright dangerous,” Cronin wrote in a Facebook message to a reporter. “Our kids are left at the curb with no idea when a bus might be coming.”
Last Friday, Madison elementary and middle school families were told to check over the weekend for potential changes to their student’s bus route that would “create efficiencies in routes and improve safety based on the feedback from drivers and families.” That followed a tumultuous first two weeks of school in which buses have repeatedly been late or missing, leaving parents and school staff frustrated.
Some students are arriving late to school because of issues with the district's bus company.
The lack of communication has been cited by others in the early weeks of First Student’s bus service. The district moved to First Student after the School Board approved a five-year, $81.3 million contract — slightly lower than the bid from Badger Bus, which had provided busing in recent years.
It also brought the promise of a “two-tier” start time schedule for elementary and middle schools rather than the “three-tier” schedule of the past, which had been a goal of the district in recent years. That change, however, required more routes and therefore more drivers amid a national bus driver shortage that has caused problems in districts around the country.
First Student Communications Manager Jen Biddinger suggested in an email Tuesday that shortage remains “the core of the issue,” and said “about 90% of MMSD bus routes continue to run on time,” leaving fewer than 10 of the 130 routes delayed on average.
“If we have drivers who are sick or off work for other reasons, we leverage qualified office staff to operate routes,” Biddinger wrote. “Unfortunately, this means we have fewer resources at the location to answer phones during route time. We are actively exploring hiring additional help to improve our response.”
MMSD Communications Manager Ian Folger wrote in an email Tuesday that the district is working with First Student to solve the problem.
“Senior district leadership is meeting continually, both internally and with First Student, to develop solutions that ensure that all students safely and efficiently get to and from school,” he wrote. “Additionally, our Legal Services team is reviewing our contract with the bus provider, and assessing all available options at our disposal.”
Wright and Cronin acknowledged they are lucky to be able to create alternative transportation plans for their children, something others may not be able to do. Wright said he’s hearing from his constituents about it, even though they know there’s nothing he can do on the Dane County Board.
“Maybe they work, perhaps at the hospital or they do shift work somewhere else and they don’t have the flexibility that I have,” Wright said. “I don’t know what they’re going to do.”
Folger acknowledged in an email “that there have been some shortfalls, in some instances, in communicating news of delays and route changes to parents” and that the district is working to improve when they send out messages and who they communicate with.
“The reality is, we are often not made aware of delays until they are imminent, leaving only a small window in which to communicate them to families,” Folger wrote. “Those communications need to be translated to Spanish and Hmong, too, which takes time.
“There is work to be done and our system is not perfect, but we do our best to be as timely and efficient as possible, and we are grateful for the patience and understanding that our families have shown.”
When asked what he needs from First Student and the district — he did credit Sennett and Elvehjem Elementary schools for “pretty good” communication on the bus issues so far — Wright said he “needs to be able to count on the bus to get there.”
“We’re several weeks into the school year at this point, things should be getting better, not worse on that front, and they’re getting worse,” he said. “First Student can start by actually manning their switchboard, but actually what I need to see is them running the buses. It’s been long enough now that I think that’s a reasonable expectation.”
One parent said communications from Sennett Middle School on busing issues have been "pretty good."
The wrong stop
On Tuesday, Sept. 5, Tylor Schumann was waiting for his 10-year-old son William after school at the bus stop they’d been assigned around the corner from the family’s house. His son attends St. Dennis, but MMSD provides transportation per state law.
After about an hour, Schumann recalled, he saw William in the passenger seat of a stranger’s car and ran after it. He later learned his son had been dropped at the wrong stop after the bus driver never came to the stop where Schumann was waiting.
While the stop was in the neighborhood, William didn't have a cell phone and did not recognize which direction to go. Eventually, Schumann said, his son found a woman walking her dog and asked for a ride to the park near their house.
That night, Schumann got his son a cell phone so they could be aware of his location and they’re now driving him to and from school.
“When did my kid get a cell phone? An hour and a half after the bus lost him,” Schumann said. “Should he have a cell phone in his pocket? Absolutely not, 10-year-olds don’t need a cell phone.”
While the mistake was traumatizing for the entire family, Schumann found it got even worse as time passed. His calls to First Student’s area manager went unanswered and an email to First Student and district officials the next day was unaddressed until he threatened to go to the media that Friday, according to emails Schumann provided to the Cap Times.
“When we’re dealing with the misplacing of a child, it should be an immediate response,” Schumann said. “There’s no such thing as, ‘Give me a day or two,’ it’s right now.”
He asked to see the bus video to understand how his son was dropped off and was told it would have to be redacted. Last Thursday — nine days after the incident — he went to the district’s office to view the video, which was without sound and, according to audio recordings Schumann took of the meeting, not redacted.
Monday, he returned to see the video with sound, which allowed him to hear that his “son was told to get off by a student with the driver’s cooperation,” Schumann wrote in an email.
MMSD's Folger wrote in an email that the student’s attending a non-MMSD school affected the timing of the district’s response.
The district selected First Student to provide yellow bus transportation.
“The short answer is, because this regrettable incident involved a school and student unaffiliated with MMSD, our investigation took longer than it otherwise may have, impacting when the district was able to make direct contact with the student's family,” he wrote.
Biddinger said First Student understands “the concern the incident caused” and is “thankful the student is OK.” She also confirmed the driver is no longer an employee of First Student.
Calling an Uber
For Ray Mendez, whose son has an Individualized Education Plan, repeated late and no-show buses to take his son to middle school proved destabilizing.
While in New York City for work, Mendez recalled, his “phone kept lighting up with urgent texts and emails” from other neighborhood parents about the buses. He began reaching out to district officials upon his return.
“The disruption on my family and a neighbor reached a point of unacceptability,” he wrote in an email. “It’s not just time, disruption and work for the parents, the kids are really upset.”
District officials promised a fix and last Friday morning, a van showed up to take his son and others in their neighborhood whose stops had been missed to school.
Monday, however, the van was late enough that Mendez chose to book an Uber to get his son to school. He forwarded the bill to district officials later Monday and believes they should reimburse him.
While his son’s bus did apparently arrive at 8:32 a.m., Mendez said that timing doesn’t provide enough time to get his son to school by the 8:40 start time. His son, Mendez wrote in an email, “really needs” the advisory period that begins the day.
