First day of school mired in bus delays

The first day of school got off to a bumpy start last week, as the Long Beach School District struggled through several bus scheduling errors that left some students waiting as long as an hour for buses that never arrived.

Superintendent David Weiss admitted that mistakes had been made at a Board of Education meeting on Sept. 10, though he also stressed that there had been no further issues with the buses after the first day, and noted the positive feedback he had received from building principals, teachers and students that the school year was off to a positive start.

However, school board Trustee Darlene Tangney spoke out strongly against the busing debacle, a situation that officials at the meeting said included bus passes and school calendars being mailed out late, buses arriving late to pick up students and others failing to show up at all, as well as a lack of communication among the district’s central administration, its transportation department and parents.

“I have to tell you that in the 24 years that I have been in this district — and all the positions I have held — I have never in my life experienced the number of emails and social media complaints that I was exposed to [regarding] the bus debacle,” Tangney said. “The way the miscommunication happened is appalling. It is appalling that we treat our parents the way we did by not responding to them.”

A major sticking point for parents was the long response time from the district. According to Chief Operating Officer Michael DeVito, its practice is to respond to each message within 24 hours, but he acknowledged that communication could have been better during the hectic first day.

Parents who attended the meeting said they were concerned that families getting their children ready for the start of preschool or kindergarten would be left with memories of a spoiled first day.