The 4 p.m. late bus, which Great Neck South High School junior Kevin relies on daily, didn’t show up twice during the second week of school. On those afternoons, he watched as his friends began walking home – a path that led through service roads and other busy streets without sidewalks. Kevin called his parents, who were working, to come pick him up.
At the start of the school year, the district provided parents with new bus routes with no explanation, a parent said. Door-to-door pickups and drop-offs were no longer offered for some, including for private school students, and the routes seemingly didn’t make sense. This inspired the creation of a Whatsapp group titled “GN Public & Private School Bussing,” with 313 members as of Wednesday, Sept. 17. The chat was mentioned a handful of times by parents during the school board meeting’s open forum, with some parents saying they coordinated attending the meeting to voice their concerns together.
When the buses are delayed or don’t show up, “there’s no explanation. There’s no communication, no apology,” Kevin said during open time. “It causes my family to feel anxious and my parents fear that something happened.”
Schools Superintendent Kenneth Bossert said the new bus routes were designed by the school system’s artificial intelligence softwear and the district is now dispatching humans to check the new system. Some parents delivered their own verdicts.
Over 20 parents of elementary and middle-school children echoed Kevin’s anxiety about school busing obstacles, each expressing their concerns regarding their children’s safety with impassioned speeches about the district’s elimination of door-to-door busing and new routes during the open forum. Some brought photos of their bus stops – busy intersections, open construction sites and roads with no sidewalk were among the locations. Parents recalled dangerous situations that their elementary and middle-school children faced in the past three weeks, questioning how the routes were made.
“It really has put our children in danger,” one mother of five said. She explained that her 7-year-old’s new bus stop is at the corner of East Shore Road and Rogers Road and said he has to cross the street “after a huge bend.” “We’re gonna cause a child to get harmed,” she said. “It’s gonna happen. It’s just a matter of when.”
The bus routes were generated technologically, Bossert told parents.
“It is software that we use to create routes, and often artificial intelligence doesn’t maximize human intel. So we have to send people,” he said. The district is sending representatives to bus stops to check their efficiency, with some stops already being changed. It is unclear whether representatives reviewed bus routes before the school year began.
“Parents have rightfully brought stops to our attention that didn’t make sense,” Bossert said. “And when the humans went to see what the computers decided, changes were made.”
This is an ongoing process for the district.
“It’s important to understand that routes are created electronically, and they must be reviewed over time with our drivers, safety officials, our WE representatives [and] our district representatives to both ensure safety and to maximize efficiency to all extents possible,” Bossert said.
It is unclear whether bus routes have been technologically generated in the past or what software the district uses.
An administrator of the group could not be reached for comment by the time of publication.
The superintendent said that while there was a significant number of phone calls about bus troubles at the beginning of the school year, as of the third week of school the volume has decreased to a more typical number.
Some parents doubted that the drop in transportation-related phone calls meant the problems had been solved. “The vast majority of us have not received any response to any of our concerns, and so I think the decrease you see in communication is simply parents giving up,” the mother of a 5-year-old student who takes the bus said. “My daughter has not been on time to her class since class has started.”
The current majority of transportation-related calls are about a “need for improvement,” including drivers missing stops and buses running late, Bossert said. Other callers urge the board to examine their routes.
Bossert has also received requests to restore door-to-door services, which he said the board “can’t accommodate.” He also pointed out how the shortage of drivers presents a challenge, but said the issue is being addressed with “the highest level of priority.”
He responded to the parents after the open forum, saying the Board of Education is “committed to providing safe and efficient transportation that also reflects the needs of our community.”
A representative of WE Transport and other leaders of district transportation attended the meeting to listen to concerns, but did not directly address those who participated in the open forum.
The district’s reason for eliminating door-to-door transportation services, changing routes and facing other transportation-related obstacles for public and private schools is unclear. The proposed direct transportation budget for 2025-2026 is $18,134,453, while the 2024-2025 budget was $17,482,512 – an increase of over $650,000.
Additionally, a financial analysis of the school district’s funds from the 2023-2024 school year from June 2024 stated that the amount of money spent on “pupil transportation” that year was less than anticipated.
At the last public meeting held on Aug. 28, attendees raised concerns about the changes made to routes and bus services. Parents particularly expressed concern over the elimination of after-school courtesy busing, which was removed after the district was audited by the state.
A transportation forum will be held on Oct. 16 at 5 p.m. The Board of Education administration and representatives of WE Transport will hear community concerns. There may be a transportation referendum later this year.
