BPS has no-show buses, delays as Boston students return to school amid talk of transportation, safety and teacher’s contract

As the majority of BPS students returned to classes Thursday, familiar and new issues came to the forefront for many — from getting students on the bus to renewed talk of keeping students safe following the shooting in Georgia.

BPS Superintendent Mary Skipper and Mayor Michelle Wu started the sunny school day at the Lee K-8 School in Dorchester, greeting students as they hopped off buses and out of cars to return to classes.

With fully-staffed buses and a new bus-tracking app for parents and staff launched, the outlook for BPS transportation this school year was heralded optimistically — but some still reported familiar troubles getting to school.

“This morning, I joined Boston Public Schools teachers and staff at the McKinley South End Academy and the Blackstone School to welcome students for their first day of school,” City Councilor Ed Flynn said Thursday. … “While students were excited and looking forward to the start of school, I spoke with some parents about bus delays and having to drop off their children at school as buses did not pick them up.”

BPS did not report on-time performance data for buses by Thursday evening.

“We know every minute of learning matters,” Mayor Michelle Wu said Wednesday. “And when the buses are late, or when the T is late, it ends up having an impact in many ways, and so that is a top priority to get students to where they need to go on time and safely and reliably.”

Wu said the improvements in bus performance over the last years aren’t an “accident or coincidence,” noting changes to driver’s contracts, driver and bus monitor hiring pushes, and new technology. BPS ended last year on a 90% on-time bus performance, shy of the state-mandated 95% goal.

As of Wednesday night, a spokesperson said, 8,247 BPS parents and guardians had logged into the new Zum app, which was implemented this year to allow families to view student’s bus assignment, track buses and receive alerts. About 22,000 students in BPS take the bus to school, which includes pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students who will not return to school until Monday.

Flynn said one parent “mentioned they drove their child from Hyde Park to a South End School because their bus did not arrive” and another South Boston parent tracked her Murphy School student’s bus on Zum for 45 minutes “only for the app to become unavailable and the bus to never arrive.”

“As we navigate the first week of school, BPS senior leadership and BPS Transportation need to be in better communication with our parents to ensure that our students are picked up on time,” Flynn said.

Following the tragic shooting in which a 14-year-old killed four at Apalachee High School in Georgia on Wednesday, school safety was again a topic as Boston students returned.

Skipper on GBH said these shootings are “too common” nationally and her “thoughts and prayers, as of all BPS’s, are with the families and the victims and all that went through the tragedy yesterday.”

“My hope is that nationally, we start to really take a deeper look at the policies that lead to some of these killings,” Skipper said. “Here in Boston, we’ve worked very hard. We have a new emergency management service department that works with each of our schools, and they submit safety plans. And so we’re feeling really prepared.”

The superintendent also cited the district’s trauma and mental health trained safety specialists and efforts to engage and develop relationships with students. Community members have cited concerns with multiple incidents in which guns were found on BPS campuses in the last school year.