Loveland Tiger Families,

Here is the schedule for the 2022-2023 school year. The chart below shows school start times rather than the bus arrival and departure times shared in last week’s message. I have been reviewing potential schedules with our district leadership team, and I feel this is the best option to tackle our transportation challenges while still serving the needs of our students and families. Please understand that these changes are due to our ongoing driver shortage. 

Look for specific information from building principals this Friday about what time buildings will be open for students to arrive. If your students ride the bus, bus schedules will be posted online in early August, as usual. 

Before and after school programs are available at Loveland Primary School, offered through Champions, an independent company. For additional information, please reach out to Leslie Barr, Site Director, at 513-570-2184. Additional Loveland area childcare providers are available by following this link. 

Why change?

We are shifting start times to allow us to provide the same reliable transportation with fewer buses and drivers. As I discussed in my note last week, there is a shortage of bus drivers here in Loveland and across the country. We anticipate starting the 2022-23 school year with 43 routes, about five fewer than last year. 

Our transportation department has worked extremely hard to cope with our driver shortage throughout this school year. Numerous times drivers have “doubled up” routes, meaning they would run a route, return to a school to pick up more students, and run that route too. You may have received messages this year that your student would be getting home late because we were short on drivers. Our Transportation Director and his administrative assistant, who luckily both have the qualifications to drive, would often run routes. 

How does this schedule help?

We are moving to a three-tier transportation system. Most drivers will run three routes per day, with about 45 minutes between drop-off times. We had been running a modified two-tier system. The advantage of going to three tiers is that we need fewer drivers on the road at the same time. The disadvantage is that start times have to be shifted. 

We are moving to this specific schedule to more closely match LECC with area private schools. All Ohio school districts are required to provide transportation for private schools. LECC has the fewest students, so we can run the LECC routes and the private school routes at the same time, reducing the number of drivers needed. 

What about 2023-24?

If we are able to hire more bus drivers, we may reconsider our transportation strategy and our start times for the 2023-24 school year. Studies show advantages to later start times for students, especially older students. We will continue to review and evaluate different transportation models to best serve our students' needs, but this is the best model for the resources available now. 

I know that families build their lives around school schedules. We worked to get this information out to you before the end of this school year, so you have as much time as possible to plan for August. As you can see, this is a complicated problem with many moving parts, but this is the best solution to provide reliable transportation for our students.

Please contact me if you have any questions. 

Thank you,

Mike Broadwater
Superintendent
Loveland City Schools