DOE: no timeline on when suspended bus routes will resume

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Public school leaders said they’re doing all they can to resume the suspended bus routes, but they still don’t know when or if those routes will be restored this year.

In a meeting with the Board of Education Thursday afternoon, public school leaders said the timeline to resume 84 bus routes is still up in the air.

“The department not being able to share when this would be completed or a timeline is very difficult for us because we have, exhausted the number of drivers that we have,” said Keith Hayashi, schools superintendent. “The bus contractors are working very hard to hire additional drivers.”

Before the school year started, 147 Routes were cancelled on Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island. Since then, 63 of them have been restored.

One group severely impacted by the loss of bus routes – public school teachers. Teachers are parents too. Union leaders are reporting that teachers are having to drop off their children earlier, getting to school later, and are reporting dangerous conditions around campus with the increased traffic.

“We cannot have these fiascos happen year after year,” said Osi Tua Jr., HSTA President. “Our students deserve better.”

The department said its working with vendors to resume the remaining routes as soon as possible, but note the school bus driver shortage isn’t only an issue here in Hawaii, but across the country. So, the DOE is also looking long-term.

“Once the dust has settled, we’ll do an after-action review that says what happened, why did it happen, what do we do better in the future,” said Randy Moore, deputy schools superintendent.

Some proposals under review:

• creating almost full-time positions for school employees who also can be bus drivers
• work with counties to optimize public bus service
• create a parent carpool app
• staggering public school schedules

“As an example, if the elementary schools in the complex start at 7:45 a.m., middle school starts at 8:15 a.m., and the high school starts at 9 a.m., the bus can take a bunch of school students, can take the middle school students, and take the high school students,” said Moore.

No matter what they do, the DOE said it’s looking at everything to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

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“We know if we keep doing things the same way, we’re not gonna address the problem,” said Moore.