Each school year presents its own challenges for districts setting up bus routes. But concerns about the spread of COVID-19 and restrictions on students in buses will affect how Louisiana schools open this fall.
"Transportation, although many might not want to admit it, is going to drive the academic component of school," said St. Landry Parish schools Superintendent Patrick Jenkins.
Jenkins and other school leaders across the state are scrambling to determine how they can safely transport students if Louisiana schools reopen this fall. In Lafayette and St. Landry parishes, more than 38,000 students use the bus to get to school and back home.
The problem districts face stems from state restrictions designed to slow the spread of coronavirus, including limiting the number of students on the bus, requiring them to wear masks and ensuring they keep a safe distance from each other.
Districts struggle in the best of times to plan routes and set pickup schedules precisely, and each year is different as students change districts, start school or graduate. This year is even more challenging, with so many changing variables affecting possible routes and pickups.
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Like transportation, planning for school amid a pandemic is a fluid situation filled with a lot of "I don't knows" and "maybes," Jenkins said.
Plans can change based on the number of reported cases of COVID-19, the governor's decision regarding phases of reopening for the state and new guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and the state Department of Education.
Before leaders announce how schools reopen, they must deal with buses
First, districts are dealing with the uncertainty of how schools will reopen this fall. They are considering how a full reopening will look with face-to-face instruction, one of three models being considered in Acadiana parishes. It's also possible students could be doing classes 100% online from home, or they might attend school in-person only on certain days or weeks.
Two of those require students get to campus somehow, and for thousands of kids that means riding a school bus.
Lafayette Parish is focused on figuring out transportation as "a No. 1 priority," spokeswoman Allison Dickerson said.
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Jenkins has pushed the issue in St. Landry for weeks as his staff has studied options for students. One factor is out of the control of superintendents like Jenkins - how Gov. John Bel Edwards opens the state by lifting restrictions.
Edwards last month delayed moving into Phase 3 reopening as coronavirus cases continued to surge, in some cases breaking earlier records of new infections and hospitalizations. Lafayette, for example, now leads the state in the spread of COVID-19.
Each phase of reopening comes with different restrictions and requirements that will affect how school buses serve students.
"It changes by the moment," Jenkins said. "(COVID-19) will exacerbate those challenges, but we will work through it piece by piece."
It's not a simple task. First they have to figure out how to maintain social distance on a school bus.
"The question becomes, 'How many kids can we get on the bus safely?'" Jenkins said.
A lot of factors go in to answering that question, such as the number of kids allowed to be on a bus at one time, where they'll sit, whether they're related and where they go to school. Those factors change for each phase of reopening in the state, so if the governor orders changes during the school year that will impact how buses can operate.
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Parents may have to bring students to school, along with other options
Dickerson said Lafayette's supervisor of transportation is working through different scenarios to come up with what riding the school bus could look like in August.
"Our director Jonathon Watson has a lot of experience with transportation," Dickerson said. "He has been running scenarios to ensure we have a plan, whichever model we are in — hybrid or traditional."
That means figuring out routes, seating requirements and cleaning procedures.
"Many parents likely will choose to bring their children if they have the option. But we want to have clean, sanitized buses for those using them," Dickerson said.
The state Department of Education has provided guidelines regarding transportation, such as capacity limits and seating requirements.
"Those are strict guidelines for a district that tries to optimize the number of students on a bus to save costs," Dickerson said. "It's a delicate balancing act that includes the number of buses, students, different bell schedules. All of that has to be discussed and coordinated with to make it run smoothly."
And that doesn't happen quickly.
"It is taking a lot of time and effort to get into those details to make sure we effectively and in a timely manner get kids to school and home," she said. "Those are the decisions we are making right now and questions we want to answer for parents when we release our plan."
In St. Landry Parish, Jenkins and his staff are working with demographer Mike Hefner and bus routing specialist First Student on the transportation piece of the district plan.
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Hefner is identifying "geocodes," or latitude and longitude locations for student addresses, and grouping the locations by similar areas, families or schools to maximize and streamline routes, even within the capacity restrictions.
Jenkins said it's not perfect, but it's a start. Then the district can apply "the human touch" to work out any kinks as it plans routes for the 200-plus buses and drivers in St. Landry Parish.
More bus routes to limit number of students riding will impact drivers
The district already has a tiered system, where drivers pick up and drop off high school and junior high students before they do a separate route to pick up elementary kids.
One problem with adding routes to satisfy capacity limits enforced during various stages of state reopening is that drivers and students would be on buses later in the day, making it harder to ensure students make it to school on time.
There's also the issue of accommodating drivers with second jobs who might have limits on how long they can work the buses.
Jenkins and his staff are taking that into consideration, asking families to bring their children to school if they can and asking schools to be flexible with bell schedules.
"We are attempting to not have drivers come midday, but everything's open at this time," Jenkins said.
Like other school district leaders, Jenkins is spending almost all his time working through issues like this as the first day of school in August inches closer.
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Most of his day is spent on the phone or video call with members of his staff and the multiple "task forces" they have created. There's one for every component of returning to school — transportation, governance, budget, social and emotional health, academics and so on.
"Each task force has parents, teachers, principals, community members and board members to get different voices to our plans," Jenkins said. "We talk every day. I've been on my phone since I got out of bed."
He said everyone is optimistic and understanding as they work together to tackle these issues, taking what they've learned since Edwards shut down schools in March.
"They realize the challenge we have ahead of us," Jenkins said. "We already are evolving and getting better at what we do. At the end of the day, we're going to be better for it."
The district is still in the data-collecting phase, and Jenkins expects to have the geocoding report from Hefner by next week and an overall plan by mid-July for transportation.
Dickerson said Lafayette school leaders also are targeting completion of a transportation plan in the coming weeks.
"We are working on a plan and would like to be able to communicate that this month," she said.
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As districts get new direction from the state, administration has to sift through it to see which are mandates, which are recommendations and how to implement those locally.
"We need to make decisions that are the best for our district," Dickerson said.
That takes time and multiple levels of communication and decision-making. For example, Lafayette school officials must decide where buses will drop off students at each school to prevent bottlenecking or students gathering in large groups, she said. This requires input from the state and district, as well as leaders at each school.
"They know their school best," she said.
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