At the start of the school year, Dallas ISD's new transportation chief Kayne Smith asked parents to be patient with the district's new bus service. On Wednesday, Superintendent Dr. Michael Hinojosa announced Smith is resigning his position to return to the Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, where he was once assistant transportation director.
Smith's exit follows two weeks of problems with the fledgling DISD transportation system, from missed pickups to late pickups. Hinojosa said the problems are not solely due to a lack of bus drivers.
"I expect more from our district. We have not been able to handle the issues that are in front of us," Hinojosa told reporters.
Hinojosa said ultimately he's repsonsible, but stopped short of blaming the probelms on his outgoing director. "It's not appropriate to cast blame, but I think we should have anticipated some of these issues."
Hinojosa said it was a mistake to use the old Dallas County Schools routing maps. The district is also overhauling its transportation communications, and looking to hire nearly 200 bus drivers.
"Yeah, I'm disappointed. I was led to believe we could handle this from day one, and we haven't handled it well," Hinojosa said. "And so my expectation is we would have a smooth first week of school. That did not happen."
At the start of the year, Smith said in any system, especially a fledgling one like DISD's, the general rule of thumb is that it takes two to three weeks for wrinkles to be ironed out, he said.
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As it turns out, Smith won't be around to see that happen. He issued his resignation at the start of the week. His last day is Friday.
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