Is it common to have assigned seating on schools buses, in CSISD or other districts?

My child is in 8th grade and has been riding the bus for the past 3 years. There has never been assigned seating before nor has there ever been any trouble on this bus. Starting this year, there is a new bus driver and he implemented assigned seating. I guess the district can set whatever rules they want regarding this but it seems odd for the sudden change.

My niece lives near us and is on the same bus. She is starting 5th grade and this is her first year to ride the bus. She is very apprehensive about riding the bus but she was going to do it because she could sit with her 8th grade cousin. Now she is not sure because they are not sitting together.

I tried emailing the transportation department but did not get any response. I am mainly curious if this is common or not. If they are going to continue this, I hope they at least let our kids sit together.

Been 36 years since I road a school bus, but never then and we didn't wear seat belt and stood up most of the time. May have changed over that time lol.

Call Hector Silva, Director of Transportation, 979-764-5440

I had some issues a couple of years ago. It took two visits to the trans center, but he got it resolved.

I think it depends on the drive, we have experienced all types of seating and rules.

My bus had assigned seating in 7th grade. It's not a big deal

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My bus had assigned seating in 7th grade. It's not a big deal

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Call Hector Silva, Director of Transportation

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That is who we emailed but he has not replied.

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I think they segregate by age since all grades ride the same bus

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The first year my daughter rode the bus they did this when High School kids were on the same bus. They put the high school kids in back and middle/intermediate in front. Not assigned seating, but separate. This only lasted a month because the bus was too full and now high school gets its own bus. The current assigned seating is not by age. 5-8 grades all mixed together but in assigned seats.

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My bus had assigned seating in 7th grade. It's not a big deal

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Yeah, it is not that big of a deal to my daughter either. She ain't thrilled about sitting next to a "nerdy 5th grader that sleeps the whole time" but she will deal with it.

I am more asking because of my 5th grade niece who was very scared about riding the bus. The one comforting thing that encouraged her to ride was that she could sit with her older cousin. Assigned seating messes this up.

It just seems like a pointless change. Nothing was wrong with the old method, why change it?

When I was in school it was the drivers decision. We had one that swore he was the king of England with his fancy clip board. Didn't last long after so many complaints.

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Call Hector Silva, Director of Transportation

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That is who we emailed but he has not replied.

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I think they segregate by age since all grades ride the same bus

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The first year my daughter rode the bus they did this when High School kids were on the same bus. They put the high school kids in back and middle/intermediate in front. Not assigned seating, but separate. This only lasted a month because the bus was too full and now high school gets its own bus. The current assigned seating is not by age. 5-8 grades all mixed together but in assigned seats.

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My bus had assigned seating in 7th grade. It's not a big deal

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Yeah, it is not that big of a deal to my daughter either. She ain't thrilled about sitting next to a "nerdy 5th grader that sleeps the whole time" but she will deal with it.

I am more asking because of my 5th grade niece who was very scared about riding the bus. The one comforting thing that encouraged her to ride was that she could sit with her older cousin. Assigned seating messes this up.

It just seems like a pointless change. Nothing was wrong with the old method, why change it?

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979-764-5440

They are having some challenges which IMHO are primarily rated to the rapid growth of the district but give them a call. Mr. Silva has been very helpful when we have had issues. I also recommend your child and your niece both hand a note to the driver Monday from parents asking that they can sit with each other.

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"Pointless change" "nothing wrong with the old method"?

How would you know? Do you ride the bus too?.... As a former bus driver i can tell you I HAD to use assigned seating from time to time. I hated doing it but if discipline and child safety became an issue it would be necessary.

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Like I said above, there have been NO issues. My daughter has told us when there were in the past. If there were issues I would understand you have to do that sometimes.

I always had assigned seating when I drove routes. Sometimes to separate the elementary from the middle and middle from high school students.

Main reason was to be able to produce a pretty accurate location of all students in case of an accident. Many school districts have this reason as the basis for implementing the policy.

I never had an accident in over 25 years of driving routes, but in districts where I worked and an accident occurred, the police, especially DPS, wanted to know where everyone was seated.

Our kids (Cypress Grove & CSMS) informed us Friday that their bus driver has told them they will have to wait after school until he drops off the high schoolers and come back to get them afterwards because his bus is over crowded. Based on current drop off times, this means they will not get home until almost 5:00, which makes for a pretty long day for 10 year olds in my opinion.

While I do appreciate the bus driver not putting my kids in danger by over-crowding his bus, it seems silly that we cannot get a second bus in Castlegate II to help with the situation.

Since I found this out Friday night, have not called CSISD Transportation yet, but will be doing so Monday morning.

Seems like if they had not re-adjusted all the schools to start/end at the same time, it might have been possible to stagger the bus schedule better to get everyone home reasonably soon after school.

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Our kids (Cypress Grove & CSMS) informed us Friday that their bus driver has told them they will have to wait after school until he drops off the high schoolers and come back to get them afterwards because his bus is over crowded. Based on current drop off times, this means they will not get home until almost 5:00, which makes for a pretty long day for 10 year olds in my opinion.

While I do appreciate the bus driver not putting my kids in danger by over-crowding his bus, it seems silly that we cannot get a second bus in Castlegate II to help with the situation.

Since I found this out Friday night, have not called CSISD Transportation yet, but will be doing so Monday morning.

Seems like if they had not re-adjusted all the schools to start/end at the same time, it might have been possible to stagger the bus schedule better to get everyone home reasonably soon after school.

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Are you saying that the bus picks up high school kids at 3:50, takes all those kids home, then comes back to Cypress Grove and CSMS to pick up kids to take them home? In other words, the Cypress Grove and CSMS kids get out of school at 3:50 and then sit at the school waiting for the bus to take all the high school kids home before he even picks them up? If that is true, I don't see how they could even get the kids home by 5:00.

According to my kids, this is what the bus driver told them would be the new schedule starting today.

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Our kids (Cypress Grove & CSMS) informed us Friday that their bus driver has told them they will have to wait after school until he drops off the high schoolers and come back to get them afterwards because his bus is over crowded. Based on current drop off times, this means they will not get home until almost 5:00, which makes for a pretty long day for 10 year olds in my opinion.

While I do appreciate the bus driver not putting my kids in danger by over-crowding his bus, it seems silly that we cannot get a second bus in Castlegate II to help with the situation.

Since I found this out Friday night, have not called CSISD Transportation yet, but will be doing so Monday morning.

Seems like if they had not re-adjusted all the schools to start/end at the same time, it might have been possible to stagger the bus schedule better to get everyone home reasonably soon after school.

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this is very common in many districts. A lack of bus drivers and a lack of buses= equal more crowded routes

I am always curious about bus complaints. If school lets out around 3:50 and they are home around 5:00, that doesn't sound unreasonable to me. If you went to pick your child up from CG and grabbed 4-5 other kids with him/her, dropped each of them of, how long would that take you? Now imagine a bus load of kids to be dropped off. It just doesn't really sound that bad to me. Maybe I just have lower expectations.

Spoke with CSISD Transportation this morning.

Their explanation was that Castlegate has "blown up over the summer" and they didn't know they would have that many bus riders. Really? Are they living under a rock at the department and completely unaware of the growth in that area?!?

They confirmed that they will be leaving the kids at CSMS and Cypress Grove until after they pick up & drop off the high school. They estimate pick up between 4:20 - 4:30 from these two schools.

When I asked what parents could do to help get another bus since we obviously need one, his response was "there's nothing you can do" and they would "look into it once they weren't so busy."

Maybe you need to talk to the superintendent or something instead of just dealing with transportation.

It also seems like something where maybe those schools' PTO's could do something, draft a letter to the superintendent that multiple parents sign, direct their fundraising activities toward getting another bus, etc.

I wonder who's watching the kids at school during those times. Can't afford more buses/drivers? Well, the teachers will watch them for free!

How dare you suggest people actually be paid for doing something important!

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I wonder who's watching the kids at school during those times. Can't afford more buses/drivers? Well, the teachers will watch them for free!

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The teachers I know have set times to work that extend after the bell. They also share bus duty that rotates every week so it's not like they're out there working for free.

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I wonder who's watching the kids at school during those times. Can't afford more buses/drivers? Well, the teachers will watch them for free!

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The teachers I know have set times to work that extend after the bell. They also share bus duty that rotates every week so it's not like they're out there working for free.

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Until I was assigned to the high school I had no clue as to how much our teachers work. I think that we would all be amazed at how low their hourly rate is based on annual salary/hours worked - even with the summer off. They come in early to plan and tutor students, they stay late to plan and tutor students. They work at home, they work on weekends and thank goodness, they still love what they do. I can see it being hard to add extra duties to their extra duties. Don't even get me started on the amount of money they spend for the kids out of their own pockets. I always respected teachers but looking back I was clueless.

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I agree and didn't mean it to sound anti teacher. What I meant was, bus duty is a normal and expected part of a teacher's day.

My kids are getting picked up around 4:30, so it is roughly 40 minutes after school lets out.

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I wonder who's watching the kids at school during those times. Can't afford more buses/drivers? Well, the teachers will watch them for free!

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it's not about affording more buses/drivers. It is about being able to HIRE drivers. Their is a shortage of drivers.