In the late summer and early fall of 2021, St. Paul Public Schools determined that a bus driver shortage would force some last-minute transportation changes for four of the city’s largest high schools, canceling yellow school bus pick-ups and replacing traditional bus routes with Metro Transit passes.
After crunching budget numbers and offering hiring bonuses through contracted providers, the school district determined this week that students at Central High School on Lexington Parkway will return to traditional school bus service when school resumes in September, an addition of about 20 bus routes.
Como Park Senior High School students will continue to use public transit.
“Literally this week we were able to confirm we have enough drivers to bring back one more school, and that school will be Central,” said Erica Wacker, a school district spokesperson, on Thursday.
Bus service
The decision was an administrative one and did not require a vote of the school board, but it was presented to board officials this week by staff. Wacker acknowledged that some Como parents have already begun to light up phone lines with concerns.
The school district previously announced that yellow bus service would return this fall for high school students of Harding High and Washington Technology Magnet High School.
At Washington, which runs from grades 6 to 12, bus service never halted for kids in grades 6 to 8, so increasing service to accommodate older students — many of them siblings at the same bus stops — did not require a heavy infusion of new drivers.
Of the four high schools that faced a sudden switch to public transit in 2021, only Como remains exclusively reliant on Metro Transit services for transportation.
Working with Metro Transit
At Como, the school district is working with Metro Transit to improve times for drop-offs and pick-ups, as well as access points. That doesn’t preclude returning to yellow bus service there in the future. “We will continue to recruit drivers, but we don’t want to have a situation where we make a promise we can’t deliver on, not having the drivers that we need,” Wacker said.
School district officials have acknowledged that in outreach to students and families, many have complained about the switch to public transit, whether the concern is added transit time, catching connections between routes or unruly behavior at bus stops and light rail stations.
Some St. Paul high schools have a more longstanding relationship with public transit, and some students have said they’ve enjoyed being able to use their transit passes after school and on weekends. At schools with yellow bus pick-up, the school district is advertising Metro Transit’s discounted rate for transit passes — the Transit Assistance Program, or TAP — for students who qualify for free or reduced lunch.
“Johnson High School and Creative Arts (Secondary School) were already on Metro Transit and continue to be,” Wacker said. Alternative high schools such as Gordon Parks High School on University Avenue and the Gateway to College school on the St. Paul College campus also rely on public transit services to transport students.
Generally, St. Paul Public Schools students in pre-K-to-8 “have had and will continue to have yellow buses” if they live more than one-half mile from their elementary school, Wacker said. Until fall 2021, students who lived more than a mile from their high school but within its designated school zone could also access yellow bus routes.
The school district maintains more than 200 bus routes through multiple providers such as First Student, Monarch and Billie Bus Transportation. That number has fluctuated from 275 routes in 2018 to 200 routes in 2022 to 240 routes for the upcoming school year.
Bus postcards will likely arrive at homes this weekend letting families know their yellow bus stops and times, their Metro Transit info or that they are not eligible for transportation based on the designated criteria.
More information is online at spps.org/transportation.