At the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year, Wayland High School bus riders faced problems with the buses arriving at WHS after the official start of the school day. These bus issues caused some students to be late to their first block classes.

For some students at Wayland High School, the bus is their only form of transportation to and from school everyday. Some students, like juniors Harrison Dale and Nora Edouarzin, are not able to drive themselves or be driven by a friend or parent, so their only choice is to take the bus.

“[I take the bus everyday because] my parents can’t take me to school,” Dale said.

With fixed bus schedules, some of the buses tend to arrive late to school and affect the beginning of students’ school days. Even when buses are not late picking up students, they sometimes still end up arriving late to school.

“[I’ve received] a few informal complaints from students [about their buses being late],” WHS Vice Principal Sean Gass said. “Most of the complaints have been from teachers, who have had large groups of students be a couple minutes late to their first block classes.”

Oftentimes, when buses pick up students on time, hitting traffic can impact when the students ultimately arrive at school.

“[My bus] usually [picks me up] between 7:55 and 7:57,” Edouarzin said. “My driver is [usually] pretty punctual, so this is when he is supposed to come.”

Edouarzin and Dale both agree that their bus drivers are consistent, arriving at the same time everyday. However, when factors like traffic are involved, the arrival times are inconsistent, causing late arrivals to school. By missing the beginning of their classes, both Dale and Edouarzin have missed significant material.

“[I’ve missed] the first five minutes of class,” Dale said. “I walked into class late on the second day [of school and [my teacher said] that from now on, if [I] walk into class late, [she would] mark me tardy unless I had an excuse, like my bus [making me late].”

When students have tests scheduled for the beginning of the school day, the late arrival of the buses can impact students’ learning greatly.

“[Sometimes when I miss] the beginning of classes, I miss a couple of minutes of a quiz,” Edouarzin said.

However, many students believe that their teachers have been understanding about the late buses.

“[My teacher] gave me time to make up [my quiz after I missed the beginning of it],” Edouarzin said. “I think [the bus being late is] a little annoying, but usually my teachers are fine with me being late, as they understand it’s the bus and I can’t do anything about that.”

At the beginning of the year, the unpredictability of traffic and navigating the bus route was a big cause of the bus issue. Recently, the problem of buses arriving to school late has been resolved, as bus drivers have developed and gotten used to their routines.

“I think [the bus problem] has already been improved [since the beginning of the year],” Dale said. “The bus arrives on time all the time now, and we usually arrive at school at 8:20 a.m. now.”

Students have credited the scheduled bus pickup times to be the reason why buses were late, and, sometimes, still are late. Some students believe that having the buses pick them up slightly earlier would help the problem of buses arriving to school late, and it would give students more time to get to their first block class.

“The pickup time was earlier last year, and usually we were always early to school, but for some reason, they made the pickup time later,” Edourazin said. “When I get driven by my parents to school, I can see the bus driver parked on the side of the road because he is timed between when he has to pick us up and the time he finishes with the elementary schoolers. So, technically, he could come pick us up earlier, but he is not supposed to because of the set time.”