Dallas ISD Hiring More Bus Drivers Following ‘Hiccups' During First Week of School

Dallas mom Lisa King knows full well the first week of school can be a bit hectic.

But she said things were more hectic than usual Tuesday morning when she took her daughter and the neighbor's kids to their bus stop. 

"I got to the bus stop at 6:38 a.m. -- and no bus," King said. "I didn’t even see a bus at all. I left here about 30 minutes later. And I never saw a bus."

She wasn't the only parent who ran into problems with Dallas ISD's new bus service.

Complaints of late buses, overcrowded buses and buses that simply didn't show up were common last week.

District leaders acknowledged those issues, and said they're working hard to address them.

"We wanted to be perfect day one, but we knew it wasn't going to be," said Kayne Smith, executive director of student transportation services for Dallas ISD. "We knew we were going to have hiccups. We saw those. Now we've got a week under our belt -- we know where we can grow, we know where we can improve. And it's our promise to the students of Dallas ISD and the parents of Dallas ISD that we're doing everything we can to make it right."

Smith said that will start with hiring more bus drivers.

Heading into the first day of school, about 100 drivers that the district expected to show up for work never did. The district said there were some mix-ups with retirements, drivers who decided to take other jobs and some who they simply couldn't reach. 

It's why Saturday, they held a job fair specifically for bus drivers -- ready to make job offers on the spot.

"This [job fair] will definitely help by getting good people on board these buses and driving these buses every day for us," Smith said.

The drivers they hire will have to complete all of their required training before they'll be able to hit the streets. While that means they won't be available immediately, Smith said the district will be running training sessions in the evenings and weekends to help expedite the process.

In the short term, they're re-working bus routes and looking for ways to improve communication with parents to help alleviate some of the issues they ran into during their first week.

He also noted that they did see some improvement in pickup and drop-off times by Friday.

"The bottom line is that this is a department that didn't exist six months ago," Smith said. "And while we knew there were going to be hiccups along the road, we ended up picking up 40,000 kids and bringing them to school and bringing them home safely this week.