Houston school district cutting bus routes for 2024-25 to cut costs, travel times – Houston Public Media

This year, bus rides should be shorter for many of the 3,000 students in the Houston Independent School District who rely on school district transportation to get to a campus outside their neighborhood. But they may have to travel farther from home to get to their bus stop.

The district announced Monday night a series of changes to bus routes for students who do not attend their zoned campus but go elsewhere as part of HISD’s magnet and school-choice programs, in an effort to cut costs and also “reduce time spent commuting and maximize time spent learning.” HISD is reducing its number of bus routes for the upcoming school year, which begins Aug. 12, from 508 routes to 423, and bus stops for magnet and school-choice students will be within a 3-mile radius of their homes, down from less than 2 miles previously.

HISD said the changes are expected to reduce average student travel times by about 30 minutes while saving the district about $3 million in the 2024-25 school year. The district also said it is changing how it dispatches and manages buses in an attempt to reduce its total transportation costs by $10 million.

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“Prior administrations have spent over $50 million on transportation infrastructure to transport approximately 9,000 zoned and choice students to school,” HISD said in a news release. “This is not sustainable and the district must begin to address the problem.”

In its first year under state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles, HISD has taken other cost-cutting measures to help close a more than $500 million funding gap, such as eliminating teaching positions and other staff roles, including campus-level specialists who help students with unmet needs such as food, clothing and health care.

The bus route changes will not apply to students with special education needs or those who attend their zoned school, with HISD saying they “will be served as they have been.”

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Students and their families will receive their new bus routes by the end of July, according to HISD, which serves about 180,000 students as the largest district in Texas. The district also said families “will immediately be able to access a transportation hotline closer to home.”

Most HISD students who choose their school will be assigned a bus stop at their zoned high school or middle school, where a bus will then transport them to the campus they attend, the district said.

“In some cases, to ensure students do not cross unsafe lanes, students will access a bus stop that is not located on another HISD campus,” the district said.