CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools transportation officials shared details on how the district's new express bus program will operate during the upcoming 2023-24 school year.
The express stops would reduce current bus stops for magnet students into fewer centralized locations. CMS said it would get students to and from school faster while also cutting costs. The program would reduce the number of buses running daily, according to CMS, which says this also helps with staffing shortages affecting its bus fleet.
"Knowing that we still have the shortage here in Charlotte Mecklenburg, across the state, and across the country. Bus drivers are a hot commodity," Adam Johnson, CMS Executive Director of Transportation said. "So what we want to make sure we're doing is being able to provide the best service possible for all students in the district."
The express stops will impact about 5,000 students in specific magnet programs.
Aileen Soper is one of the hundreds of CMS families who said they just can’t make CMS express stops work.
"I'm a single parent, I work full time, I have two children who will be attending two different schools next year," Soper said. "I will not be able to transport my child to and from one of the set express stops."
Soper’s child goes to Northwest School of the Arts.
The nearest express stop is about two miles away and she has to find a way to get her child there if they want transportation.
"Even though I have a somewhat flexible work schedule, you know, maybe more so than some parents, I don't have the flexibility to do two different drop-offs at two different times in the morning," Soper said.
CMS first announced the express bus service last December. Reaction has been mixed among CMS school board members, with some saying they're worried about lower-income families being affected by fewer bus stops in their neighborhoods. Some board members said they were told by some families that they were pulling their kids out of the magnet programs because of the proposed changes.
“We've heard solutions, such as carpools and you know, things of that nature, but carpools won't matter if you don't have a car,” Dee Rankin, a CMS school board member, said at an April school board meeting.
Just a month before the new school year, CMS said it has been able to increase the number of express stops from 19 to 40.
"As we've heard from the families, the concerns that they had, we tried to address those by adding additional stops at CMS sites, CMS schools to address their needs," Johnson said.
The district asked families who couldn’t come to CMS labeled express stops to try and make consolidated stops.
"If families were able to get together with another group, we asked for at least seven, we were able to create stops either at a neighborhood clubhouse, could be a local church, or a shopping center," Johnson said.
Consolidated stops had to be initiated and created by parents.
CMS said it was unable to supplement families' drive to express or consolidated stops. The idea was floated to partner with CATS or a ride-sharing service to help parents.
"We did explore an option with like rideshare, or possibly a way for parents to carpool," Johnson said. "It didn't, we didn't feel that it was appropriate for the families who have liability issues and safety issues of who might be driving those vehicles."
Parents at consolidated stops also won't have CMS security.
"CMS sites will have a campus security associate there," Johnson said. "But a consolidated stop if it's in a neighborhood or a school or church parking lot or a shopping center, those won't have any campus security associates, but those will only be available at the CMS sites."
Soper, in addition to other families WCNC Charlotte spoke to said they were unable to make a consolidated stop work either.
Should CMS have scrapped the plan, WCNC Charlotte learned in April the district would need to add more than $4 million to its budget for bus drivers. But even if the district had the money set aside, there's no guarantee they'd be able to get drivers in time.
As of July, Johnson said CMS has 51 driver vacancies and 53 drivers on leave. They do anticipate that number to go down before the school year starts.
Johnsons said in 2018 CMS was running 1086 buses, and they ended the last school year with 928.
"We anticipate hopefully, if everything holds together, we should be able to cut somewhere close to 80 to 90 more buses off the road," Johnson said. "As you can imagine that's going to be a tremendous help to us to match and mostly align with the staffing that we have available."
Soper said in CMS is creating a problem in the quest to solve one.
"What you're going to be doing with these magnet programs is creating segregation academies," Soper said.
According to 2022 school data 22.4% of the students at Northwest School of the Arts, where Soper's child goes to school, are economically disadvantaged. There is no publicly available data on how many of those students participate in the magnet program and are impacted by the express stops.
But some of the families speaking out against the plans include working families, low-income families, and some families of color.
"I call them segregation academies," Soper said. "Because the people who will be able to send their children there are either able to drive their children to and from a bus stop, meaning they may have a stay-at-home parent or a parent with enough flexibility with their work schedule."
Soper said communication from the district has failed her family, and her options for school next year are limited.
"It's a county-wide magnet, that means county-wide transportation," Soper said. "And if you can't guarantee that a child is going to get to school safely, then you haven't done your job. I don't care whether you're the board of education, whether you're the superintendent of schools, or whether you're the head of the Transportation Department."
CMS officials said the new express stops will impact the number of county students' access to some of the magnet programs.
"We just want families to know that we went through every possible plan, any possible change that we could do that wouldn't affect as many kids," Johnson said.
When the express stops were first announced it was estimated about 5,000 high school students would be impacted. The district distributed an intent to ride survey and they anticipate about 50-60% of those students will be riding an express stop.
That leaves the possibility a few hundred may unenroll or find another way to make it to the schools. The district won't have a full picture of who this will be until after school starts.
"That information will be out probably sometime in September," Johnson said.
The district said parents with children who need to use express bus stops will receive information in the next few days.
"We'll also be sending communications home to families via email just to make sure that they're updated on what's going on," Johnson said.
Johnson said they will receive a mailer that will have express bus stop information. Families can visit CMS's website now to see the closest express bus stop assigned to them.
"We wanted to give them a few extra weeks ahead of the traditional schools," Johnson said.
CMS's high school early colleges, some of which will be impacted by express stops, start schools earlier than traditional CMS schools. Those families have less time to decide whether they will participate in express stops.
Soper, in addition to other families WCNC, spoke to, said the timeline on when they plan to give final information to families is not enough.
"I would like to know why after eight months, I still don't have any additional information about how my children my child is going to get to school to and from school safely," Soper said. "I'd like to know why the Transportation Department hasn't answered my emails."
Johnson did not discuss individual parents' email communications, but when asked about how communication has been overall he described it as positive.
"It's actually been great once we take the time to work with them and hear their concerns," Johnson said. "And it really becomes more of a brainstorming activity and kind of working together to get to a result that's workable for us and for them."
The current list of schools that are participating in the Express Stops program can be found on the CMS website. Students who attend their home magnet schools or non-magnet schools will not be impacted by this plan.
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