For a second day in a row, KCPS Superintendent Mark Bedell found himself addressing the school bus problems at Lincoln College Prep Academy.
"I sent a message to our families that Lincoln was going to be in good shape," Bedell said.
But the district told us eight buses from Daye Transportation never made their routes Tuesday morning.
41 Action News went to the company's headquarters looking for the owner, Patrick Daye.
"The school district took away some routes and we kind of combined some routes; our drivers are now undergoing the third change in less than a week," Daye said.
He said about three weeks ago he agreed to provide service for 18 routes for the school district. According to him, last Wednesday KCPS came back with a list of 25 routes.
"We had a little bit of a back and forth about which routes I was interested in and the number of routes," Daye said.
On Friday they agreed to 21 bus routes for Lincoln Prep. The next day, his drivers spent five hours doing dry runs.
On Sunday, Daye and some of his staff were in the office until 10:30 p.m.
"When we left, we put [the] routes on seats, keys in buses, so that when we got here Monday morning all the keys were in the buses -- and someone had misplaced some of the keys," Daye said.
That left some Lincoln Prep students stranded Monday morning, including the superintendent’s children.
"If our kids aren't in school, there's no attendance reporting, and our school system gets whammied from that perspective because you're not receiving the funding you need to put that back in schools and our classrooms," Bedell said.
In a statement Monday afternoon, the school district wrote the company has grossly underperformed. However they're working with Daye and other transportation companies in the metro to fix the issue.
On Tuesday, Bedell released a statement. It reads:
"On April 28, 2016, Patrick Daye signed a contract with KCPS that covered the period from January 1, 2016 through June 30, 2016 to provide transportation services to KCPS. This contract provided for “after school tutoring bus transportation on Tuesdays and Thursdays weekly.” It also provided for “Charter, Field Trips, Athletic transportation and other routes as mutually agreed upon on an as-needed basis as requested by KCPS.” That contract specifically stated that when the term ended on June 30, 2016 that it “will automatically renew for additional one year terms.” Attached to that contract, signed by Patrick Daye on April 28, 2016, is a “pricing page” with rates for the years 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019. There is no pricing on the pricing page for 2015-2016. Clearly this contract was for the academic year 2016-2017.
Patrick Daye is fully aware that there is a contract for Daye Transportation, LLC to provide transportation services to KCPS. Up to this point, his company has grossly underperformed, however, KCPS administration will continue to work with Daye, First Student and Transpar to mitigate the issue. This is an unfortunate situation for our students, our parents, our teachers and the entire KCPS community, but we will work tirelessly to make sure it gets fixed as soon as possible."
Daye told 41 Action News he promised to parents that the issues they've experience over the last two days won't happen again Wednesday.
The superintendent added the district's legal department is looking into the contract that Daye signed with them to see if there was a breach of contract.
Some parents upset after bus issues
Tracy Thompson was at work Monday when she got the call that her daughter was still waiting at the bus stop and needed a ride to school.
"I had to take off work and come home and drive her to school," said Thompson. "We only have one car, so I lost some money but of course for my daughter's education I was willing to do it. [On Wednesday,] I'm getting a ride and leaving the car at home so if the bus doesn't come the car is there to get her to school.”
Ryan Wolf is another parent who has a son attending Lincoln College Prep. On Monday his son's bus did not get him home until after 5 p.m.
"And I know the superintendent isn't in total control of the situation. He has to rely on those transportation companies to take care of the issues, but hopefully things are going to get rectified sooner than later," said Wolf.
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Andres Gutierrez can be reached at andres.gutierrez@kshb.com
