Lincoln College Prep Academy is blaming its new bus company, Daye Transportation, for failing to get dozens of students to and from school on Monday - the first day of school.
This is the first year the company was hired to provide transportation for Lincoln College Prep.
On Monday morning, dozens of students were left waiting at various bus stops. More than 60 percent of students were transported to Lincoln College Prep by their parents - which is a higher than normal percentage.
On Monday evening, five Daye Transportation buses did not show up after school, leaving more than 100 Lincoln College Prep students stranded. Some were picked up by parents while others waited more than two hours before First-Student Bus Company sent three buses to take students home.
New Kansas City Public School Superintendent Mark Bedell is upset about the transportation debacle. Two of his children attend Lincoln College Prep and were left stranded at their bus stop Monday morning.
"My wife was waiting at the bus stop with our kids. We saw a Daye bus drive past without stopping and the kids kept waiting. Finally, I decided to cancel my first appointment and get my kids to school on time," said Bedell.
As superintendent, Bedell equated failing to provide transportation for all students to failing to provide a quality education.
"We have students here whose parents don't have any means of getting them to and from school. And so their only option is transportation. So as a school system we have to make sure that we are doing our due diligence to clearly vet anybody that we enter into a contract with so something like this won't happen again," Bedell said.
Bedell said Monday night that he will meet with Daye Transportation officials as well as First-Student Transportation officials to make sure students will be successfully transported to and from school.
Bedell said he is also disappointed that the transportation problems at Lincoln overshadowed an otherwise overwhelmingly positive first day of school for the Kansas City Public School District.
On Tuesday, Bedell released the following statement saying KCPS administrators are continuing "to work to fix transportation issues that started yesterday morning."
“Kansas City Public Schools administrators continue to work to fix the transportation issues that started yesterday morning. Our Chief of Operations and Transpar met with First Student and Daye Transportation last night and came up with a plan to help minimize the issue, however, we still had issues this morning.
Our team is currently exploring every option and every possible solution. We are working tirelessly to get this right, and we will not stop until every student who rides a bus gets to school and taken home on time.”
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Cynthia Newsome can be reached at Cynthia.Newsome@kshb.com.
