Glitch disrupts school start for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools students who ride the bus
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WTVD) -- Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools is working to resolve a transportation issue that disrupted the first week of the school year for some families, leaving some students without assigned bus routes and parents searching for alternative arrangements.
The district said some elementary students and students entering kindergarten, sixth grade or ninth grade were accidentally unassigned from transportation because of a technical glitch. Officials have not said exactly what caused the problem.
The transportation issues created added stress for some families as students returned to school.
"The kid's already nervous about their first day of high school and now we got to worry about, can she even get there or not?" CHCCS parent Jordan Dickens said.
Some parents said their children were left without assigned transportation information.
"My sixth grader doesn't have an assigned bus," CHCCS parent Jackie Woodside said. "I stand by the phone and don't go to do anything else until I know that he's really gotten on in the afternoon."
The district also said information about walk zones did not reach all affected families. District leaders acknowledged communication shortcomings as they work to address the issue.
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"We're chipping away at some of the technical issues, as well as some of the communication things that we need to reflect on as a district," district spokesman Andy Jenks said.
Families who are missing route information or believe there is an error in their transportation assignment are being asked to contact their school's data manager.
District leaders said they hope to have the problem resolved by next week.
"We've got the drivers, our routes are covered," Jenks said. "At the moment, we're just in that troubleshooting phase for some families of making sure students who need bus transportation or have expected it for years are correctly in our system."
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