While the new start times for school have been allowing more students to get more sleep, it has also been causing some other problems. Since school has started, the buses have been arriving late in the mornings, causing students to be late to their classes.

“We provide transportation for the elementary and middle schools. Basically what happened is we used to come early, and then they would get dropped off after high school students were [dropped off], that’s now been flip flopped,” Principal Nicholas Richter said.

The RJUHSD transportation department has been partnered with the RCSD schools. Because last year the high school students started at 7:40am, they would get picked up by the buses before the elementary and middle school students. Now that the start time for high school students is closer to the start time of elementary and middle school students, it’s more difficult for the bus drivers to get the students to school on time.

Another setback with the buses is that the bus stops and bus routes have changed. The bus drivers are still trying to get used to this new system, especially the newer bus drivers that are being hired.

“The first issue is that change of routes, that change of when we’re dropping off and where we’re dropping off. There’s new traffic patterns so we’re trying to get through that,” Richter said.

With a new start time of 8:30, more people are trying to get to work which causes more traffic and makes it much harder for the buses to get from point A to B.

There is currently a shortage of bus drivers which requires the buses to go to more locations to pick up students. The school is currently in the process of looking for and hiring new bus drivers. However, it does take some time to train them and they too will also have to get used to the new bus routes.

Roseville High School is not the only school in the district that is currently having this problem

“Right now it’s happening to almost every high school in the district. Some are impacted a little bit less because they have fewer bus riders,” Richter said.

There is not a specific date that the school has in mind as to when the buses will start arriving on time. 

“We’re hoping that we get this dialed in by mid September,” Richter said.