Durham Families Face "Responsibility Zones" for Schools in January

“You could move forward with walk zones and express stops or move forward with family walk zones or express stops, but doing nothing is not an option,” said Dr. Anthony Lewis, DPS superintendent.

The DPS Board of Education reached consensus during Monday’s special meeting for the transportation department to fine-tune plans to take about 1,100 elementary school students off overcrowded school bus routes and put their way to school – walking, riding a bicycle, or riding with family – in the hands of their parents and guardians.

Currently, district leaders are eyeing Jan. 6 for year-round calendar schools like Rogers-Herr Middle School and Jan. 22 for traditional calendar schools like Southwest and Parkwood Elementary. They’re expected to finalize the implementation schedule during a meeting on Dec. 19.

The responsibility zones are another way of describing “walk zones” defined in DPS policy as areas within 1.5 miles of a family’s base school. Transportation officials identified more than 1,000 students living within that range that would have safe enough roads, sidewalks, and other protective infrastructure to make it to school without requiring a school bus.

The district also will explore the idea of express stops for secondary schools, which would call for families to deliver students to DPS transportation hubs and – from there – they’d be taken to school. Parents and guardians would need to pick them up again at the end of the school day.

DPS has struggled this academic year with late or non-existent buses due to an ongoing shortage of bus drivers and an unexpected spike in demand that put 6,000 more students on school buses whose routes already had been set and planned. For the rest of December, families are following a rotational bus coverage plan that calls for them to provide transportation for their children at least once per week.

During that time, district transportation officials are hoping to free up about 22 bus routes with the family responsibility zones and another eight with the express stops. That’s expected to give DPS enough buffer to help ensure transportation for students without other options.