District 204 officials announce transportation plan for new boundary proposal

Eligible students in Indian Prairie Unit District 204 wishing to stay in their current schools instead of transferring due to the boundary changes coming next school year will have the option of transportation to and from school, officials announced.

In an update at Monday's school board meeting, Ronald Johnson, the district's director of support operations, said his team was able to accomplish the goal by completely resetting the bus routing scheme for District 204.

While some students may need to walk a little farther to their bus stops, Johnson said the majority of issues that existed in February were resolved. Not only will the eligible "grandfathering" students receive busing, but 98% of next school year's route times will also remain under about 22 minutes.

"Nothing should look different except for you may have to walk a couple extra steps to get to the bus stops," Johnson said. "It's really not changing that much.

"Even the grandfathered students shouldn't see a big increase from what they're currently seeing," he said.

Johnson and Matt Shipley, the district's chief school business official, said even with a continuing shortage of bus drivers, the district was able to achieve complete coverage because of route adjustments and the relatively low number of "grandfathering" students requesting busing.

Of the 1,307 students eligible for transportation and choosing to stay in their current schools, only 543 requested busing. One of the last remaining transportation issues was with Metea Valley High School students, but officials solved the problem.

The number of routes and bus drivers will remain the same as this year. "Grandfathering" students will be added to existing routes or new routes that are being created under the new enrollment boundary plan.

Rising fifth, seventh, eighth, 10th, 11th and 12th graders were eligible for "grandfathering" in the district that serves Aurora. Bolingbrook, Naperville and Plainfield.

"We should see an overall improvement in the system as part of that boundary change," Shipley said. "That does, to Ron's point, allow us to more efficiently route the buses and, again, hopefully, provide the same level of service with the same or less drivers."