Father frustrated over school bus delay, lack of answers
Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- Day two of the new school year in Clark County ended with dozens of complaints from parents about buses running late or not showing up at all.
One local father reached out to Action News, not knowing where his kids were Tuesday afternoon.
Every day after school, Dwayne Dukes spends time tutoring his two children. His daughter, Sydney, is in the 4th grade at Rex Bell Elementary. His son, Sir, is a 5th grader with special needs.
On Tuesday, their tutoring session started late, after quite a scare. Dwayne says the school bus his kids were on didn't arrive when it was supposed to. He waited for more than hour, wondering what happened.
"An hour late is unacceptable," he says. "It was really freaky. Our kids are very important to us, and we want to know where our children are in those situations."
He was joined by other worried parents at the bus stop. They called Rex Bell Elementary School for more information, but staff had already gone home for the day. Dwayne says they also repeatedly called the school district's transportation call center, but kept getting a busy signal.
"If we don't know where our kids are, somebody needs to be available to let us know something. We were getting panicked. Were they dropped off at the wrong place? Were they in an accident? Until the school district gets everything organized, they need to make sure and have somebody pick up the phone, and answer questions when there is a problem. Those are our kids."
District leaders say they're working diligently to iron out these kinds of issues.
"I realize that there's been an influx of calls and we're working hard to make sure every call gets answered by a live person," says Amanda Fulkerson, spokeswoman for the Clark County School District. "Our transportation center employees are working hard, investigating every issue, and trying to be there for everyone. We have 100,000 kids who rely on school buses, and it's the start of a whole new school year. We are trying to have all issues resolved within the next couple days."
Fulkerson says they're still looking into what caused the delay for Dwayne's children.
Action News also reached out to the John Carr, the president of the union that represents bus drivers. Carr believes the recent bus problems are a result of staffing issues, that would be solved if more drivers and resources were allotted to the district's transportation department.








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