District rolls out earlier routes, ticketing system and new transportation supervisor as ridership and tickets spike

District transportation leaders told the board they released rough bus routes earlier than usual (July 28) and implemented a help-desk ticketing system to manage parent requests and routing changes.

Carissa (district staff) said sending routes to families three weeks earlier than typical gave staff time to respond to concerns about stop placement and times. Since mid-July staff recorded roughly 620 help-desk tickets, with about 160 to 170 still being processed at the time of the update. The ticketing system replaced ad hoc email and phone threads and allows staff to assign and track tickets to improve response time; staff said the average resolution time ranged from three to five days for many tickets.

Tom Risley, the district's new transportation supervisor, told the board he plans to centralize decisions about stops and routing while balancing safety and cost. Risley, who said he has decades of experience in school transportation, emphasized that some of the most difficult tickets involve families affected by the district's two-mile no-transportation policy for older students; staff said the district must apply consistent safety and distance criteria (elementary walk-up to roughly 0.5 miles; middle and high school up to 2 miles in some cases).

Staff said the district transports about 7,400 students systemwide. They also reminded the board that this year the district used an opt-in process for transportation (families indicate a need), a change from automatically routing all elementary students, and that the opt-in process helps when building next year's routes in spring if families respond in time.

Board members asked for follow-up reporting after school starts; staff said they plan mid-year efficiency reviews and additional status updates once routes and ridership stabilize.