FORNEY, Texas — A photograph of an overcrowded Forney ISD school bus posted to Facebook Tuesday night has district officials on the defensive.
FORNEY, Texas — A photograph of an overcrowded Forney ISD school bus posted to Facebook Tuesday night has district officials on the defensive.
The photo, posted by Kasandra Gibbs, depicts a school bus where students were forced to seat 3 to a seat, and in some cases on the floor due to overcrowding. Gibbs is a host parent for a foreign exchange student who attends North Forney High School.
The district released a statement on social media Tuesday night that read,
“Forney ISD officials were notified of this post tonight. We contacted our transportation department and are investigating to remedy any issues immediately. We have been in touch via private message with the parent. We invite anyone with concerns to call us at 972-564-4055 so we can address concerns promptly.”
Students claim that the overcrowded buses have been an issue since the first day of school in August.
“My driver told us it would get better, and they expected some kids would stop riding the bus and catch a ride with friends,” a North Forney student tells inForney.com in an email. “It hasn’t gotten much better, and we all know it’s not safe.”
Gibbs tells inForney.com via telephone that she met with Forney ISD Superintendent Justin Terry and other district transportation officials on Tuesday morning.
“He told me that shadow buses have been available since they were aware of the need on August 21,” Gibbs said. “My students didn’t take the bus for the first 5 days of school; they started the following week.”
Gibbs says the photo was taken on August 29. In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, the district says the plan was not implemented until Aug 30.
“The safety of our students is always our number one priority, and we take any information provided by parents, students and the community seriously. Forney ISD purchases 77 passenger buses. The district standard for high school routes is to split the route when capacity reaches 50 high school students. The bus in reference was split into two different afternoon routes on August 30 once we reached the district’s standard capacity. A shadow bus was also implemented to follow the buses each day in the case of large capacities. As always, we encourage parents to contact the school district directly if they have any concerns in the future,” Larry Coker said in an email statement to inForney.com
Gibbs says that her students didn’t notice any difference in the overcrowding till last Friday.
