Several Summit Hill Elementary School District 161 parents said transportation problems have plagued the start of school with buses arriving nearly two hours late in the morning and buses returning back to school in the afternoon forcing parents to pick up their children.
Aggravated parents in Mokena and Frankfort, who said they and their children were stressed out due to the transportation troubles, called and emailed the Daily Southtown and shared messages they received from the school district both Thursday and Friday.
A text message Thursday, the first day of school for kindergarten, went out at 5:27 p.m. saying a bus route for Dr. Julian Rogus School in Frankfort was still dropping off students, nearly two hours after the school day ended. At 5:42 p.m., a message went out saying the bus was returning to school.
“If your child has not made it home, please pick up your child at (Rogus) at this time,” the 5:42 message read.
A text message from Friday notes a bus from Dr. Julian Rogus was loading at 3:57 p.m, nearly a half hour after the school day ended. At 5 p.m. the text message stated that same bus was returning to the school.
“At this time please pick up your child from school,” it read.
Dr. Julian Rogus in Frankfort serves children in kindergarten to fourth grade.
In another situation, an email notification stamped 4:39 p.m. Friday stated students from one of the bus routes were still at Indian Trail School, and parents could pick up their children at the main entrance. The Frankfort school for students in first through fourth grades also ends at 3:30 p.m.
The first day of school was Aug. 21 for students in first through eighth grades and Aug. 22 for kindergarten.
Parent Anna Lizak said Thursday her children and their friends at the bus stop waited one hour and 50 minutes for a bus to arrive to take the children to Indian Trail School in the morning. She waited with her second- and fourth-grade children, but other parents had to go to work.
Lizak said she didn’t feel comfortable driving other students to school herself. Each time she called the school, she was told it would only be a little bit longer, so they continued to wait.
“Everybody was upset,” she said. “This is not normal.”
Finally, a substitute bus marked to take children to Rogus took the students to Indian Trail, she said.
On Friday, their morning wait was 47 minutes, Lizak said.
Parent Lynn Koziol said Thursday her kindergarten student was dropped off at 5 p.m. He was bright red, tired and spent 15 minutes drinking water to relax. It was a disappointing start to the school year, she said.
On Friday, the bus passed her corner around the designated drop-off time at 4:19 p.m. but did not stop. She used a tracking device her son carried with her and found out he was still on the bus and heading in the wrong direction. Around 4:40 p.m., he was finally dropped off.
“They have no idea where they are going,” Koziol said.
With this week’s anticipated heat and a bad first experience, Koziol said she will drive her son to and from school until the district can work out the kinks.
“We might consider using (the buses) eventually,” she said. “None of the other districts seem to be having these problems.”
Other parents took to social media to explain their frustrations.
District 161 Superintendent Paul McDermott emailed families Friday evening, apologizing for the service.
“We will continue to support Safeway as they make adjustments and improvements to the service being provided to our families,” the email read. “We appreciate the information shared by our families, apologize for the disrupted and disappointing service, and will be relentless in our work to hold Safeway to the highest of standards.”
In an email to the Daily Southtown Monday, McDermott said district officials are working diligently with Safeway to address the transportation issues. They are seeing improvements and are hopeful these will continue, his email said.
“Safeway has been responsive, understanding our parents and students have been more than patient and deserve better service,” McDermott said.
McDermott said the district does not typically see these types of delays each year and is communicating any problems through all avenues accessible to the district.
A representative from Safeway Transportation Services Corp. responded to an inquiry into the bus problems through email, saying they would like to apologize for the “rocky start” to the school year.
“While not an excuse, Safeway has experienced the challenges around driver shortages and recruitment turnaround times that consistently plague the school bus industry,” the statement read. “Safeway is making significant progress in addressing these issues.”
Safeway is rapidly hiring new drivers and moving them through the training as soon as possible, representative Mikayla Lukasiewicz said via email. Meanwhile, school office staff are taking calls and working with parents to communicate updates on routing and other service issues.
Safeway is also adding visual electronic routing technology to its buses to improve overall efficiency of its routes, she said.
Parent Lisa Brace, an administrator of a Facebook group for District 161 parents, said she believes the transportation mess was created when the school board voted to close Frankfort Square and Arbury Hills elementary schools. Many of the students who would have attended those schools could have walked to them, but now have to be bused, Brace said.
She said parents asked for a transportation plan from the district in the winter when the board was discussing closing the neighborhood schools.
“I have enough grace to forgive 15 minutes late, but this is really unfathomable,” Brace said. “This goes beyond first day trials. This was a mess. This was unnecessary, preventable and predictable. It needs to be rectified and someone needs to be held accountable.”
McDermott said via email that the transportation problems are not the result of the closing of the two elementary schools.
Safeway also said the company regularly follows developments in the district it serves and adjusts for capacity changes such as when schools close.
Michelle Mullins is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
