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After more than 30 Oswego School District bus drivers and a dozen bus monitors called in absent Sept. 21, school district officials canceled in-person learning for the district’s junior high and high school students for the day.
The decision was posted Tuesday morning on the district’s website and generated immediate reaction from district parents, many who took to social media to express their thoughts. Here is a sampling of several of the comments, edited for publication:
“First, I want to say that I fully support the district and I understand why we are having these shortages. It’s so difficult for them to juggle the budget issues we have with a nationwide bus driver shortage. It also doesn’t help that we are in the middle of a global pandemic and many people don’t want to be exposed to that many people or they are struggling with the unpredictability of the pandemic within their own family. It’s just a difficult year for everyone involved. My kiddo is a 2nd grader at Boulder Hill, and he is obsessed with riding the bus. This year, our experience has been an exercise in patience. The closest to “on time” our bus has been in the morning, is about 5 minutes late but it is usually closer to 10 minutes late. In the afternoon, 15 minutes late has been the norm. The 1st week of school my kiddo was over an hour late 2 out of 3 days. And it would be less frustrating if he was not the second bus stop after the bus leaves school, so the issue is the driver shortage, not traffic. My family is fortunate enough to be able to provide transportation on days like today, but I can absolutely understand how this is extremely difficult for many families in the district.” - Tina Wagner
“Both my kids, sophomore and a senior, said they were impressed with what their teachers did today on such short notice. They felt it was a productive day, and they enjoyed the extra hour of sleep this morning! So thank you to the teachers who once again kept learning happening with very little time to switch up their entire day’s plan. For those saying, “Why can’t we just…(insert your personal desire here)? Please keep in mind that a decision for 18,000 students had to be made immediately. The only efficient way to do that is to provide one option that can best meet the needs of the most students possible. We invested a lot of money into technology so at least we are using it to make the best of a difficult situation.” - Janet Miller
“My junior is upset. She feels it’s not about the kids. She’s mostly concerned the rest of Homecoming Week is going to be affected. My thoughts: remember when everyone was so concerned about the kids? Well this affects the kids! Now we can’t even get them to school.” -Jessica Farooqui
“I just don’t understand why we can’t have the option to drive our children. Why are we not getting a voice as parents? I know for a fact there are parents out there who have said they would rather be late to work than miss an entire day. Meanwhile, I have a senior in high school trying to take AP classes with a 2 year-old and 4 year-old running around screaming and I can’t take them outside because its been raining/wet. My 4 year-old had school canceled which means he’s not getting speech or his social work. His routine is disrupted, he misses out on that social interaction with his friends and we have no idea how long it’s going to continue. Remote learning is not an appropriate option for a 4 year-old! As far as these bus drivers are concerned they should be ashamed of themselves!!! Don’t agree with mandating a vaccine but a test to ensure safety? Where’s the problem?” - Krystin Dellaca
“Honestly, keep the ones remote who want to be remote. Consistency is so important. I don’t see these issues going away anytime soon. Thankful for everyone’s hard work and commitment to our kids education during this pandemic.” - Kara Sejd
“They are ruining Homecoming Week for these poor high schoolers! They’ve been looking forward to this. My son is a freshman and was looking forward to his first Homecoming ceremonies. Let whoever can get to school on their own go, don’t shut down everything! I’m willing to drive kids to school and I’m sure many others would offer to carpool. Stop mandating crap for people and we wouldn’t be in this situation, let us live our own lives!” - Julia Dodson
“My biggest concern is why we can’t do remote learning on days like this which was the plan in place before this school year even began so that my preschooler kids don’t miss out. I’m seeing a trend with letting the early childhood students being left out again. The high schools and middle schools allow remote today and elementary in session altogether but again preschool is canceled even though teachers are still going into the building. Why not implement remote learning? It’s only for like 15 or 30 mins anyways (just like it was all of last year).” - Tejal Patel
This year has been a straight up nightmare. Will the bus be late? Will it even show up? And when we are notified that they’re running late, it’s AFTER school has already started for the day, so of course we have to drop everything to get them because who knows if a bus will even show up? On September 8, my boys get on their bus, ten minutes late, and I assume, mistaking, it’s going to take them to Grande Park. Oh no. My fifth grader tells me causally the next morning that ‘Hopefully the bus will take them to the right school today.’ Excuse me? What do you mean? Yeah. They not only took the kids to the wrong school, they took them to the wrong district school! (Lincoln Elementary in Plainfield) My kid tells the driver that isn’t their school, the turn around, and get to GPE a half hour into their school day. That’s a half hour of missed learning time. Not to mention the child safety issue of my kids being taken to the WRONG SCHOOL IN WRONG DISTRICT!!!! Needless to say, I’m pissed, left a voicemail, transportation calls me back later that day and tell me I’m mistaken. The driver just took a wrong turn and decided to turn around near Lincoln. Ok. Let’s say I believe this, which I don’t based on my child’s account, but let’s say I do…you can’t turn around before there? Really?! That’s over 3 miles away from our school. This morning, five minutes before our boys are supposed to be picked up, we are notified they’re running at least 25 minutes late. That’s after school starts. So once again, we have to drop everything to get them to school on time. Why are our taxes over $12G/year, and this even an issue?! How can they not have this arranged before school started? How are we to trust our kids are safely even getting to the correct school?! That’s my own personal issues with this year. I had nothing but great things to say before this year. Last year our gal was amazing and maybe only late twice the entire year, usually weather related, totally to be expected. This year they’ve only been ON TIME twice. Ridiculous! - Crystal Johnson
“I’m super concerned especially for my early childhood daughter who has now missed 6 days of school due to these shortages. She has an IEP. Having her be in person is vital for her since she receives her speech therapy during school. It seems like when things get hard they just cancel class for her. It’s absurd they need to have options! I have already reached out to her teacher with my many concerns she forwarded it to administration who just advised that “they’re working on it”. They couldn’t even email me back just had her teacher relay the message back to me. I will keep trying to reach someone from Special Ed who will actually answer all my questions and address my concerns since I’m not important enough for even an email back.” - Izzy Krukowski
“I have two kids in elementary school in SD308. They are usually bused to school anyway so they got to school and home just fine. Late as usual, but they were fine nonetheless. However, I do understand the frustration from the junior high, school, early learning, East View, GOAL and Pathway parents as it was SO last minute and I’m sure parents had to scramble to figure out what to do with work and getting their kids set up again for remote learning. We got that email around 6:30 this morning. In reality, I’m sure there are a lot of parents in the district who were already gone for work and teachers already getting ready in their classrooms. I don’t claim to know the personal reasons for the bus drivers to call out en-mass today. From reading other news stories, it seems to be because of pay and sign-on bonuses for new hires. I understand that frustration. If it’s over testing/vaccines, well, that’s a whole other argument. However, no matter what, it’s a lose-lose for the kids, parents, and teachers. It’s a disruption compounded on a year and a half of upheaval, uncertainty, and ire.
“But it’s not just us here in our little suburb. It’s Chicago. It’s Massachusetts, Maryland, California, Ohio, Washington.....pretty much every state is experiencing bus driver, monitor, and other staff shortages. Is it because of health and safety concerns, pay gaps, workforce pool, eligible people, vaccine requirements? Probably all of the above! If this pandemic has taught us anything that is we have to think outside the box because what we’ve been doing ‘forever’ isn’t working any more. Maybe we should have options for ride-shares like CPS is exploring. Car-pooling. Anything to avoid drastic measures like calling in the National Guard taking our kids to school. But we need to first figure out what the problems and concerns are from those who we all depend on. Let’s be honest. There’s no other way to say it. We depend on the bus drivers, the bus monitors and aides, etc. to keep the wheels turning. Then, we need to find a way to address those concerns/grievances, whatever they may be and figure our how to remedy the problem, if possible. Thank you for taking the time to hear our thoughts and stories. Hopefully, there will be some resolution.” - Joi von Rentzell