CAMPBELL COUNTY, Ky. — By the end of the month, school buses will be back on the road transporting children to school.

In the meantime, a Northern Kentucky school district is using this time to practice and evaluate bus routes.

“We had to modify the routes due to the breakup of the school week,” said Jeff Mefford, a bus driver and trainer with Campbell County School District. “We have an A and B route.”

Mefford said it’s like a choreographed dance, but with school buses. He’s been driving buses for 5 years with the district. This week, they’re doing trial runs of bus routes to make necessary tweaks. 

“We used to shuttle kids to keep the bus traffic down to a minimum and now we can’t do that because every time you shuttle kids, you’re co-mingling them with additional students and it makes the contact tracing very difficult,” Mefford said.

Before the school year and in-person star, children will sit in assigned seating. Bus Assistant Pam Schneider will note each student's spot, and stagger seating to create distance.

“When the first student gets on, they want them in the back of the bus, that’s where I started and I moved up and when they come out in the afternoon,” Schneider said. “They want the student to have the same seats so when they get on the bus they just move right to that seat that they had in the a.m. and they’ll have the same one in the p.m.”

Schneider will help with contact tracing by document students’ names on a chart. It’s part of the requirement from the health department to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus.

As kids get on the bus, their temperatures will be checked, and they will be required to wear a mask. Bus drivers will be wiping down seats between each route. 

“Basically every bus will be sanitized at least four times a day,” Mefford said.

Campbell County Schools will begin virtual learning on September 14. In-person classes will pick-up on September 28, similar to across the Commonwealth.