What’s The Deal With RPS 205 Buses?

Anyone else having issues with RPS 205's school buses? I thought I was alone on this, but apparently not.

There have been four occurrences where I was rushing to get my child to the bus stop five minutes prior to the scheduled arrival time only to miss the bus, and it wasn't fun.

Fact; I'm not the most punctual person. However, I know what time my child has to be at the bus stop, and I am aware that RPS 205 "encourages" guardians to have their child waiting five minutes prior. Can I "encourage" the driver to wait until the schedule arrival time before leaving?

From RPS 205's website:

Students should be prepared to board the bus 10 minutes prior to the scheduled pick-up time for the first two weeks of school then they should be prepared to board the bus 5 minutes prior to the scheduled pick-up time thereafter.

Four times I've watch the bus come and go, without stopping, before the "arrival" time. It happened again this morning, and I was not pleased. They should at least have stop and wait until said arrival time - if there is no child, proceed.

I was beginning to wonder if anyone else if having this problem (or something like it), but then I read about buses arriving late. As a parent that does leave until their child is on the bus, I would be raging mad if someone didn't warn me.

WREX talked to a parent that said RPS205 posted about Tuesday's weather related delay on social media but she didn't see it.

"This morning I got a text from my son at approximately 8:38 a.m., and he'd been there since about 10 after 8 and he said, 'Mom, my bus hasn't been here yet,'" Cheryl Herron, of Rockford said.

 

Rockford Public Schools posted on social media Tuesday morning that the buses were delayed but Herron says she never received any communication from the school and her son waited for an hour for his school bus to arrive.

 

He came inside and missed school for the day. After that Herron says she spent two hours trying to get information from the district and is still unclear if her son is excused.

How about an automated phone call? Who has time to check Facebook and Twitter to see if there is a bus issue every morning?

I'm not alone in seeing a problem here. Here's more from WREX.

"I think there is a huge lack of communication and I find it rather unbelievable that they don't know the exact policies," Herron said. "Because you talk to one person and they tell you the policy is this. You talk to another person and they say the policy is this."

 

Dear RPS 205,

Please make things a little easier for parents and guardians. #bettercommunication

Signed,

Parent with a lot going on.