David Lawrence, DPS interim superintendent and the former business manager for the district, said buses were fully staffed this year on the first day. While the district acknowledged that some buses had been late, Lawrence said the latest any bus would have been was about half an hour – within the state legal limits to transport kids to local charter schools.
“I think we have had one of the best starts to the year regarding transportation,” said DPS board president Chrisondra Goodwine at the Tuesday board meeting.
She said she had seen very few online complaints about late buses.
The troubles with DPS busing were so bad last year that some Catholic schools and charter schools sent multiple complaints to the Ohio Department of Education about buses that were consistently late to school and late to pick up. ODE fined DPS for the late school drop-offs and pick-ups but DPS has counter-sued in Franklin County Common Pleas Court to challenge ODE’s authority for fining them. The case is still pending, with a trial date set for next April.
Susan DiGiorgio, principal at Ascension School in Kettering, a private Catholic school that complained about DPS busing last year, said she was cautiously optimistic about busing for this year.
She said all the buses were there on the first day of school on Wednesday.
“They’ve been very gracious,” she said. “The bus drivers stopped in this morning before school and introduced themselves.”
Alyse Pennington, principal at Horizon Science Academy, which had several problems with late buses in 2022-2023, said DPS busing was so bad last year the charter school formed a group with a handful of other local charter schools and hired First Student, a school bus company, to transport students to and from school using some settlement money.
Under state law, anyone living in the school district in grades kindergarten through eighth grade who live more than two miles from school must to be bused to school. High school students do not need to be bused.
If the student lives more than 30 minutes away by bus, the district can pay a fee to the students’ family for the student to get to school themselves.
DPS purchased RTA passes for high schoolers. Lawrence said the district expects to spend around $2.6 million this year, down from about $3.2 million last year, on RTA bus passes.
The DPS school board approved a contract this week with the RTA to allow school resource officers, who may be called to the central bus hub downtown, to be reimbursed for those services, officials said. Last year, RTA officials complained that DPS students were causing issues on buses and RTA property, though DPS says the students aren’t the ones causing the problems.
DPS schools are starting at different times than before to accommodate charter and private schools, who generally start around 8 a.m. Nine elementary schools start between 7 a.m. and 7:20 a.m., one – Roosevelt – starts at 8 a.m., Louise Troy starts at 8:10 a.m., and seven elementary schools, plus the International School which serves all grades and Stivers Middle School, start between 8:50 a.m. and 9 a.m. All high schools and two middle schools start at 8 a.m.
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