Ever since the first day of school , my bus has had an issue getting me to campus on time. Not five or 10 minutes late, but 20, 30, and sometimes more.
It’s hard to catch up in a class when you’re constantly late. It gets difficult to copy down the 20 minutes of notes that were missed. I have experienced this first hand. During the first quarter, I have been late to school so many times that I am an entire week behind in my first hour class.
Instead of being in class doing my work, I am standing at the bus stop waiting for a bus that should have already been there. Instead of moving on in the lessons like the rest of my class, I have to play catch up to make up for work that I haven’t been doing.
Another problem with the buses coming late: there isn’t a set time that the bus comes. The problem with that is I don’t know when I’m going to be late. Some days I get to the bus stop early and it’s on time, but most days it’s at least 30 minutes late. There have also been many occasions where I’ve missed the bus because it comes really early. No one at my stop knows the times that the bus is supposed to be there.
Junior Juanya Williams has a C in chemistry, that could easily be an A if only she came to school on time.
“I’m constantly late to chemistry,” said Juanya Williams, a junior. “One of my most difficult classes. Missing 20 minutes of it doesn’t help.”
The bus issue is so bad that for two weeks, an administrator had to personally drive us to school, which was the only time that we were on time to school for more than three days in a row. He isn’t a bus driver, so he had to get back to his job as an administrator and my bus started coming late again.
“The district had reached out to principals and asked which one of their administrators had a bus license,” said Mr.Gaddy, an administrator. “So I volunteered, I wanted to make sure that our students are on time.”
Santaluces isn’t the only school with bus troubles. During the first week, 40% of buses across the district arrived to their stops late. The problem got so bad that 4 middle schools had to move their start times to make sure students arrived on time.
By the end of the first quarter, the district announced that 90% of buses were on time. Unfortunately, I am in the 10% that still isn’t on time. What’s even more frustrating that it seems like no one cares. Recently, I was waiting at the bus stop and it was already 20 minutes late. When I called the school to let them know that we were still waiting, the person who picked up responded, “Wait some more,”and I did because I had no other choice. The bus arrived 15 minutes later and I missed first period again.
