Alachua County Public Schools bus changes to begin

Changes to the Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) transportation system take effect on Tuesday, Jan. 16, the start of the district’s second semester. District officials hope for the routes to improve the timeliness of arrivals and departures, and to use funds more efficiently. 

The first key change is that “courtesy” bus routes will be eliminated, meaning the district will no longer provide busing to students within a two-mile walk of their zoned school, a courtesy they were previously provided though the state does not require it. 

There are a few exceptions to this modification, as ACPS will continue busing students in the two-mile zone if they attend a highest-need elementary school, must walk a hazardous route to get to school, or are ESE (Exceptional Student Education) students. 

Parents can request busing if they believe their student’s trip to school qualifies for the state’s definition of hazardous walking conditions. 

The district is also consolidating transportation to choice and magnet schools into “hub” stops. This will require parents to deliver their child to one of the centralized locations within their district. 

Since the beginning of the 2023-24 school year, buses have been late or non-arriving at pickup and drop-off points, leaving parents and administrators frustrated over the class time students were missing. The issue is not particularly new, as ACPS has struggled with bus driver shortages for years and tried to solve the problem through job fairs. 

Dontarrius Rowls, who became director of transportation in July 2023, presented this semester’s changes to the school board in September. He said the changes to the transportation system should make routes more efficient and attainable for the number of drivers the district has. 

At the time, the district was 19 drivers short of what it needed to operate its routes, and nearly a fifth of its driving staff was made up of substitutes. 

ACPS does not plan to terminate any bus driver positions as part of the new changes, according to the district website, instead stating the new routes will “significantly reduce the existing driver shortfall.” 

The district is also still looking into other methods of improving the transportation system, including driver recruitment and retention, and the possible adjustment of school start times in the future.