As problems around late pickups, late drop-offs, changing routes and miscommunication around school busing continued into a fourth week, South Orange-Maplewood Supt. of Schools Jason Bing apologized for the “unacceptable” issues and announced that the district was looking at changes to transportation in order to avoid another rough start to the school year in 2026-27.
“As we continue to navigate the beginning of the new school year, .. when I first came we had some items that … needed fixing,” said Bing at the Sept. 25 Board of Education meeting. “The one hanging on right now is to enable a more effective start of the year transportation process, which we have not done.”
Bing started with the district in the summer of 2024, and faced issues with transportation at the start of the 2024-25 school year, as well as the sudden death of the interim transportation director.
“We still have routes that just are not making it on time,” said Bing. “It’s not only disappointing. It’s frustrating for this Board, myself, and most importantly our students and families. I promise you that we are working 24/7 to fix those issues. We would not be aware of some of the issues, if not for the emails and phone calls. So, as I have said previously, please keep them coming. The more information we get, the better.”
Bing said that he and SOMSD Business Administrator Imani Moody were riding routes and tracking routes in their cars. “I’ll be continuing to sit on routes until this is solved because right now it’s about four routes and it’s unacceptable. And this is putting aside the construction and the detours that are going on around the town.”
Bing thanked the township of Maplewood for its work on developing and implementing a new drop off and pickup plan at Columbia High School “that has gone really smoothly” and said that the townships’ police departments were currently working with SOMSD’s vendor to update hazardous routes.
But Bing said more changes would be coming in 2026/27 to ensure that district did not continue to experience these transportation problems with the start of each school year.
“As we move forward with busing, I do want to promise that we will be reducing our reliance on third party vendors, especially in regards to routing,” said Bing. “We’re going to be bringing that in-house. We hired a new director of transportation who has an expertise in routing, and we’ll be bringing that in-house. We also explored the purchase of buses to assist with such things as athletics, field trips and inter-school trips. We’re going to examine school start and stop times. We’re going to analyze our pre-K busing, review the pros and cons of Stopfinder, and also review our current tiering system to start the September 2026/27 school year.”
Parents reach out, react
Bing’s reference to emails from parents has been witnessed by Village Green, which has been copied on copious amounts of electronic correspondence since Sept. 2, the first day of school. Parents have shared their frustration and fears, and offered detailed information about missed stops and late pickups and arrivals (as well as one bus stopping at a convenience store), as well as providing maps and lists of routes from last year, in an effort to aid the district. Bing has responded consistently and with detailed information.
Clinton parent Chi Brauner expressed her frustrations with busing during public comments at the Sept. 25 Board of Education meeting.
After thanking Bing “for your hands on leadership,” Brauner said, “Our asks are simple: 1. buses running correctly and efficiently on day one and 2. proactive communications.”
Brauner detailed that “over the past four weeks, we saw system-wide breakdown. Communication was siloed: Stopfinder, PowerSchool and bus rosters still don’t match up. And last year’s lessons weren’t applied.” She said that routes are “changing on the fly. Drivers were handed new routes daily” and “safety and schedules were misaligned.”
Brauner offered these suggestions: “Plan earlier. We appreciate the eight buses now serving Clinton. At max capacity, they can move the entire school. Yet routes still overlap, with stops a block apart, which is inefficient and strains the budget. Appoint one accountable transportation lead to coordinate bus companies, schools, families, crossing guards, PowerSchool, and Stop Finder. Involve parent liaisons during summer routing and set simple guardrails — No arrivals before staff can receive kids and no departures before the bell. Number two, test and verify. Run dry runs before day one. Do ride alongs on day one and give drivers and families clear lead time on any changes. Number three, communicate with one source of truth. Keep PowerSchool, rosters and driver messaging in sync. Provide realtime GPS and send delay alerts as soon as the first pickup slips, not 20 minutes later. And share weekly bus metrics so families can see progress.”
Brauner continued, “We’re all here to set our kids up for success. Families shouldn’t have to come to the BOE for basic quality control. My ask is simple. Stop working in silos. We want the Triple I [Intentional Integration Initiative] to work and it takes a village. This is about equity. Lost learning time and sleep hit our youngest and most vulnerable first.”
“And lastly, please keep supporting Superintendent Bing,” said Brauner. “Few leaders wade into the weeds like he has and let’s extend that roll-up-our-sleeves mindset districtwide.”
Meanwhile, in the fifth week of school, the issues continued.
On October 1, Village Green was copied on an email from a Seth Boyden School parent, that began, “Hello – It is not a good morning.”
The parent said that a “newly formed route” had arrived that day at its final stop at 9:15 a.m. — “more than 20 minutes after school started — and had been roughly 30 minutes late” to pick up her daughter.
“We are a month into the school year. This repeated failure is completely unacceptable,” the parent wrote. “The situation is getting worse, not better. I have coordinated with more than 40 other parents at Seth Boyden experiencing the same problem. The prolonged waiting times are unsafe and unreasonable; it is not acceptable that any child must sit outside not knowing when the bus will come.”
