Kindergarteners On The School Bus - Q & A

No.  If you are late for your bus stop, you should take your child to school.  This is for your child's safety. It is not safe to unexpectedly run up to a bus at another bus stop.

Only if the kindergartener is accompanied by an older sibling.  Otherwise, we ask that the responsible adult wait with the student until she/he has boarded the school bus.

Yes.  Unless a kindergartener can get off the bus with an older sibling, the student MUST be turned over to an authorized person by the bus driver.  It is not permissible to release the child to a neighbor that also rides the bus.  If there is no one at the bus stop to receive the student, the driver will ask the Transportation office to call the person responsible by telephone.  If no contact is made the child will be returned to the school.  

In addition to the parent/guardian or older sibling, an authorized person is one that has been designated by the parent or guardian to receive the child.   An Authorization for Kindergartener Drop-off form must be on file with the Transportation department.  The document will name the individual having authorization to pick up the student.  This would include relatives.  Authorized persons unfamiliar to the bus driver will be asked to show identification.

Half days of school work exactly as the full day of school.  The stop time will be the same amount of time after the bell release time on a normal school day.  For example, if a child normally arrives at his/her stop 20 minutes after the afternoon bell time, the half day bus stop time will be 20 minutes after the half day bell time.  Please expect delays in the early part of the school year.  The loading of students onto buses at the school after release can take additional time.  Eventually everyone will become familiar with the process and settle into a routine.

Traffic, weather and other conditions beyond our control can cause the bus to run late.  As such, we incorporate a ten-minute window to allow for such circumstances.  In the event of a bus running considerably late, every effort is made by the Transportation department to notify you.   A School Messenger will be sent to the families notifying them of the late bus.  Depending on how you have your phone number set up with the Technology department, you will receive a text message, an email and a phone call.  This is the same messaging system used for notification of snow days.  These messages can take up to 5 minutes to compose and transmit.  Bus drivers are asked to notify the Transportation center as soon as they know they will be ten minutes or more behind.  This will apply to both morning and afternoon transportation. 

During the first couple weeks of school, we ask that you be especially patient.  Drivers are getting used to their routes and often, especially the first couple days of school they field many questions from parents at the various bus stops.  This will also cause a delay in those stops further down the line.

Each child is allowed one pick-up and one drop-off address.  The pick-up address may be different from the drop-off address, but both must be consistent every day.

We do not service private day-care facilities however, a parent or guardian can request alternate busing for day care purposes if the alternate stop meets the following criteria:  1) Eligibility is determined by the student's home address.  The alternate address must be within the school's attendance boundary.  2) The alternate route must be an existing stop on the bus run.  3) The alternate bus cannot be within 10% of load capacity.

The Transportation department must have a hard copy on file of Form 076-4, Request for Alternate Address Busing, prior to scheduling.  It may take up to ten working days to process the information and assign routing.  If your child should need to resume transportation services from your home address, a new form must be completed and processed by Transportation prior to making the change.

Students are expected to be out at the bus stop 10 minutes prior to their scheduled pick up time. This includes when busses are running behind, we do expect students to be out to the stop 10 minutes early. This is because factors such as traffic and weather can cause delays or put busses ahead of schedule by a few minutes. Think of it like when you're driving somewhere and how weather or traffic signals can make it so you're to your destination early because all of the lights were green, or a few minutes behind because it was snowing.