Back to School Transportation Reminders
We provide this information every year as a reminder, and to ease your Back-to-School nerves. Transportation delays are to be expected the first few days of school. Please know that our Woodland bus drivers will be 100% focused on getting your child home safely. As you will see from the list below, there are many possible reasons for delays. We appreciate your patience.
Here are a few common things we see:
We still have students enrolling in the district which means we are adding students and possibly bus stops to our routes in the final days before school starts. This may make for small changes to timing all the way down the line.
Many parents want to take first day photos during the morning pick-up, or it may take a little extra coaxing to get little ones on the bus for the first time. This may be a big transition for some. Our youngest wildcats often need help getting on and off the bus the first few days. The steps are big and the supplies are heavy!
Traffic patterns will be very congested the first few days, so we recommend taking the bus if possible. We have a large volume of cars and buses trying to enter and leave our parking lots in the morning and afternoon. Even with traffic control support from law enforcement, moving that many cars and buses through our parking lots takes time. The parent pick-up line usually begins to flow better after everyone gets used to the system and that can easily take a few weeks. We will go as slow as we need to in order to make sure everyone is safe.
Remember, we have a multi-tiered system, so if there are delays with bus call at one school, this may make buses late to the next school. If a bus is rerouted, even a five-minute delay can easily turn into a 30-minute delay at the next school as the buses are staged for dismissal. While we do everything we can to tighten this up, other factors can throw a major wrench in the plan.
Our bus drivers are working hard, and they want to make sure they get everything right. They will be checking rosters and seating charts and taking their time to get to know the students on their route. After the first few days, this process is quicker and more efficient. We would rather experience delays at first, if it means making sure students get on the right bus and make it safely home.
The phones in the Transportation Office will be ringing off the hook on the first few days of school. We bring office staff from the district office, business office, and other locations to support Transportation with the call volume, but it will be hard to get through. This does not mean that your call is not important to us, or that something is wrong. Please consider sending an email (trans@dist50.net) or delaying your call until the following week with questions and concerns that are not urgent.
Thank you for your support!
