NAMPA, Idaho — This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
The Nampa School District has been seeking to remedy myriad issues following the chaos of Monday’s bus routes.
Monday was the first day of school for the NSD and the first day with a new bus contractor, First Student. There were major delays, confusion on routes and children that did not make it home on their assigned bus.
According to district spokesperson Matt Sizemore, the district saw improvements Tuesday.
“The improvement we witnessed in student transportation from Monday to Tuesday was truly like night and day,” he wrote in an email. “While there are still areas to refine, every aspect of Tuesday’s busing operations ran much smoother compared to the first day of school.”
According to Sizemore, most buses arrived 10 to 20 minutes earlier than on Monday. However, some buses did experience delays, which Sizemore attributed to “procedural lapses, mechanical issues, and the typical challenges that come with the first week of school.”
At Tuesday’s school board meeting, district administrators and trustees listened as parents expressed their frustrations, some berating the district for losing their children.
RELATED: After year of changes, Nampa superintendent reflects on school closures, schedule alterations
Parent Leslie Weast recounted the experience Monday afternoon when her 8-year-old son was missing for over an hour.
“I was a lunatic looking for my child,” she said.
Weast went to her son’s elementary school and could not find him. Eventually, her son made it home. Weast said he got off at a stop a mile away and walked home alone on a street with no sidewalks.
“This is our responsibility, to ensure our kids are transported to and from school safely, and we do not take that lightly,” Superintendent Gregg Russell said at Tuesday’s meeting. “We failed yesterday.”
Russell outlined several issues, including buses dropping off students at the wrong stop, unaccounted-for students and an overwhelming number of calls to the district office.
“We had students last night that we were looking for, and that’s where I believe we ultimately failed the most, because we scared a lot of parents and families,” Russell said.
A crash involving a bus hitting a concrete barrier also caused a major delay. According to Russell, no students were involved in the accident, but it resulted in the greatest delay as a different bus had to be assigned.
“Some of that is not uncommon for a first day,” Russell said about minor delays. “(But) there were numerous missed stops after school.”
In addition to a laundry list of contributing factors, communication failed on various levels.
The district had limited access to the buses’ GPS and were unable to locate them when parents asked. Drivers also were unclear on which students were on their bus, and some rosters were incomplete.
Parents calling the district could not get answers as phone lines were overloaded. District staff could not locate buses and school faculty did not know where children were.
The district has since established a “control center” with staff answering calls, looking at routes and working with the Nampa Police Department’s school resource officers. NPD Sgt. Jason Cantrell said the police did receive calls from concerned parents on Monday.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the district reported that things were going smoother on day two.
“I think we did see some improvements, but we are far from where we need to be,” Russell said.
In addition to the control center, all elementary school students are now being tagged with a color-coded system to ensure they end up on the correct buses.
Trustees noted that parents and students are using bus numbers instead of route numbers to identify their bus. Some days, First Student drivers will use a different bus to take the same route, resulting in confusion.
“I think that’s what most parents are used to — at least until yesterday,” Vice Chair Jeff Kirkman said.
Instead of using the bus number with a dash, families should be looking at a digital screen on the bus labeled “RT#500.”
First Area Safety Manager Lance Lackey said that drivers normally go through a six-week training process and do practice runs of their routes.
School started nearly 10 weeks after Nampa trustees elected to tap First Student as the district’s new bus provider.
“Normally we have a lot more time for them, we get the routes a lot more sooner,” Lackey said.
While the timeline was tight, First Student drivers did complete training and were able to do practice runs just days before school began.
With many factors at play, Chair Brooke Taylor said that improvements were going to take time and consideration from the district.
“I do believe there will be issues, even after tonight,” Taylor said.
First Student did not respond to requests for an interview.
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press, read more on IdahoPress.com.