Upper Darby superintendent apologizes for “rough start” to transportation; district outlines causes and fixes

Superintendent Dr. McGarry apologized to the board and the community for the district’s “rough start” to transportation service at the opening of the 2025–26 school year and outlined technical and staffing issues the district says caused the problems.

Dr. McGarry said the district provides transportation to “nearly 5,000 students” across about “139 different locations” and “over 115 different routes.” He said the district changed routing software this year, moving from VersaTrans to Transfinder, and that errors in merging routing data into the GPS feed meant “almost a thousand students that were supposed to be routed” were not properly loaded into the system during the first week of school. “We wanna apologize as a school district for the the rough start that we've had with transportation this year,” he said.

The superintendent described three principal sources of disruption: a routing-software implementation that did not fully complete before classes began; confusion over a new numbering convention separating route numbers from bus numbers; and unusually high driver callouts that reduced available drivers. Dr. McGarry said transportation was on track to start with 89 drivers covering 88 anticipated routes, the district lost seven drivers without notice on Aug. 25, and the department was operating 92 routes with projections it could reach 94.

District officials also said the GPS vendor did not receive accurate nightly data files after the software change, which made live tracking unavailable to parents for several business days. Dr. McGarry said staff discovered a mistake in how route numbers were merged across systems and that discovery came during the first week of school.

Public commenters who raised transportation problems during the meeting described repeated delays and confusing routing they said continued after the district’s initial fixes. Resident Joe Clark said in public comment, “There is absolutely no excuse that September, we're still having technical problems with programs they started implementing almost a year ago.” Clark gave multiple examples from his neighborhood, including a 40‑minute ride for a 1.6‑mile trip and buses that appear to be reassigned while approaching stops.

Resident Sadie Thomas, who said she has helped test the Where’s the Bus app, said the app at times showed incorrect stop assignments and that she was once handed an unrelated child at a stop; she urged better enforcement of traffic controls near schools and clearer communication to families.

The district described a set of near‑term actions: clearer and more frequent family communications, coordinated reviews with three vendor companies to ensure accurate data file exchanges, updated internal timelines for routing review prior to next school year, and continued work to hire and retain drivers. Dr. McGarry said the district has an in‑house bus training program but that it takes “three to five months” to train a new driver. He also said the district had met with the transportation union’s leadership and held a “thank you” meeting that reduced callouts after a major sporting event.

Discussion versus decision: the board heard the operational report; no formal board vote on transportation policy or contracts took place. The superintendent said the administration will provide additional updates and will handle case‑by‑case issues through home‑and‑school meetings and direct family communications.

Background: Dr. McGarry said Transfinder is “considered the most popular routing software” and is used by many Delaware County districts; the district ran the new system successfully for summer ESY routes but experienced problems when fully switching at the start of the school year.

The board did not take formal action at the meeting other than to hear the superintendent’s report. The administration said it will return with more detailed updates and continue working with union leadership and vendors.