LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Staff and traffic cones guide parents into dedicated pickup lines at duPont Manual High School in Louisville. The magnet school is one of many in Jefferson County Public Schools that lost bussing this year. 

What You Need To Know

  • Students in Jefferson County Public Schools wrapped up their first week back Friday

  • Parents Spectrum News spoke with say the pick up and drop off situation is improving

  • Thousands of families were left to get their kids to school on their own this year

  • In April, the district cut bussing to nearly all magnet and traditional high schools

Around twenty minutes before school let out on the second day of school, the line of cars backed up beyond school property. 

“They are coming up with a better plan and practicing. It’s quite obvious that they’re practicing and getting it a lot of thought,” said Greg Kroll, who was parked on 1st Street with his hazard lights on.

Kroll is picking up his two kids from Manual. He got there early, like he did Thursday.

“Not enough people really directing traffic, so they didn’t really know what was going on. It took a long time to get through the line,” he said of Thursday’s pickup and drop-off situation.

The Kroll family is in the same situation that thousands of others are across the city. 

In April, the JCPS school board eliminated bussing for nearly all traditional and magnet high schools, affecting around 16,000 students.

The cut came in response to a transportation issues at the start of the 2023 school year.

District superintendent Dr. Marty Pollio told reporters Thursday, they are working on addressing long drop off and pickup lines that families are experiencing. It includes adding additional crossing guards and reworking traffic patterns.

“There’s always going to be backups and traffic at schools with 1,800 to 2,000 kids in that and so there’s not a whole lot that we can do to completely alleviate that but we can improve on that,” Pollio said

Pollio explained the district will work to make fixes where they can, but some locations will always prove challenging. 

“Some are just always going to be difficult traffic patterns based upon the fact that the streets they’re on, the amount of people that are coming,” Pollio said.

The Kroll family is lucky. Kroll says his two kids have bus passes or can ride their bikes to school from where they live in Shelby Park. A luxury students who travel across the county to attend their preferred school do not have.

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