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Parents say EBR transportation system had a bumpy ride for the first few days of school
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BATON ROUGE- It's been a bumpy ride to and from school for some kids as districts fight a work force shortage, with complaints from parents about buses running late, some way too early or others loaded with the wrong group of kids.
In East Baton Rouge Parish, a sign at one of the transfer sites tells parents they are not allowed to pick up their kids. One family says that is exactly what they had to do.
"When he gets there, they are standing there in the middle of transfer site, bawling their eyes out," grandma Donna Bryant said.
Bryant says her son-in-law found her two granddaughters hours after they were supposed to be home at the transfer site when school started this week. The bus they were told to get on wasn't there.
"They didn't know what bus to put them on, the kids didn't know what bus to go on. Mind you, they are six and seven. If you tell them a thousand times, they still wouldn't know"
The school system acknowledged the incident with this statement:
"Tuesday, August 9, EBRPSS staff were notified of a report of two students left at the Sherwood Forest transfer station. After being dropped off by their bus at one of our transfer sites, transfer site supervisors noticed the students were confused and did not recognize their assigned bus to continue their bus route. Per the district, the students were always supervised by bus transfer point staff members and were not left unsupervised. The district, school leadership, and transfer sites staff worked together to make sure the students returned home safely and in a timely manner."
Bryant says they are upset because they were not notified and it took several phone calls to find the two girls.
Those are not the only issues transportation ran into on Monday.
Another parent told WBRZ a whole bus of kids were put on the wrong route. Parents had to meet the driver and pick their students up.
Some parents tracked their children through their Apple Air tags and noticed they were not on the way home. They say the bus driver noticed when there were still a lot of kids left on the bus.
Other students missed their ride to school altogether.
"It turns out the bus came close to 15 minutes early. Even if he would have been out ten minutes, like the card says, he still would have missed the bus," mother Frances Young said.
They're hoping the kinks get worked out after the first two days of school.
"I hope they get a better handle on it," Bryant said.
"The only way I can be proactive is have them at the bus stop earlier, really early," Young said.
Districts across the area have complained about a lack of bus drivers.
EBR did not respond to the other allegations.
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