CYPRESS, Texas – With just a week until school starts at Cy-Fair ISD, parents are scrambling to figure out what to do after the school district slashed dozens of bus routes.
Many of those parents took their concerns to the school board Monday night with members expressing frustration in how parents found out.
Many of the parents found out their child wouldn’t have a bus ride to school less than three weeks before the first day of classes. The district says it is all because of a budget deficit.
When school starts Monday in Cy-Fair ISD, Kaysa Mayes said her eighth and ninth graders will have an estimated 42 minute walk home from school.
“There were 22 sex offenders that were in the area. The other concern is there are no sidewalks,” Mayes said.
Mayes is worried. She is a single parent who works from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and found out on July 31, like other families.
“I was upset. I was frantic,” she said.
Her children’s walk to school would cross major roads, like other students in what parents call unsafe conditions.
“There is not even a flat plane for them to be able to walk. There’s a ditch on both sides. It’s human trafficking. There’s overgrown bushes that are out in the street,” said Rorie Porter.
Board members say they never wanted to cut routes, but had to as a way to protect jobs. Some shared the safety concerns.
“I would never have my child walking on Cypress North Houston, when there’s not even a bit of sidewalk and no curb or anything on a 40 mile long road, that is truly not safe,” said Cy-Fair ISD board member Natalie Blasingame.
Another board member blasted the rollout.
“The district failed to communicate to parents on this vital issue in the manner that it truly deserved,” said board member Christine Kalmbach.
Under the district’s plan, elementary students less than a mile from campus and middle school students less than two miles away won’t have access to a bus.
“If you don’t have kids in their seat, you don’t have no money anyways,” Porter said.
Parents aren’t sure how they’ll pull it off, calling on the district to do better.
“They need to do a better job of making sure that our children are safe, because that seems to not be the number one concern,” Mayes said.
The district says it receives little financial support from the state to pay for bus service.
One board member said she’s concerned some parents might still not even be aware if their child has access to a bus ride come the first day of school.
Cy-Fair ISD sent KPRC 2 the following statement about the bus changes on July 24:
“There is minimal state reimbursement for providing transportation services to students living within two miles of a campus. With an initially projected $138 million budget deficit for 2024-2025, reducing transportation services was necessary to prevent further reductions in staff at the campus level.”
Click here for the district’s 2024-2025 transportation plan.