ComplaintsforFirst Student

• Initial Complaint

  08/22/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  The bus company is very unprofessional! 8.21.24 was the first day of school and the bus monitor threatened to have the bus driver stop the bus and put my daughter on the side of the road, due to my daughter being afraid of a bee that entered the bus and was surrounding her.

• Initial Complaint

  05/10/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  My children went through a distressing incident with their bus driver today, May 10th, 2024, at 3:37 pm. They informed me via text that the bus driver had kept them on the bus against their will for 15 minutes before allowing them to disembark. Upon receiving the message, I rushed to their location, which turned out not to be their designated bus stop. Upon arrival, the bus driver, named Fred, ignored my inquiries about the situation. Despite my repeated requests for him to release my children, he remained unresponsive. Eventually, two more students emerged from the bus along with my children, and they sought refuge with me as I contacted the authorities to report the bus driver's behavior. The incident endangered the lives of the children, as witnessed by one student who was nearly trampled as the bus abruptly moved while students were still standing. The children were understandably frightened and distressed, with my sons experiencing heightened anxiety, possibly triggering an asthma attack. ********* Police Department case# ************ ********* ** *****

• Initial Complaint

  05/07/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  bus driver verbally abuses children and parents.

• Initial Complaint

  03/13/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  This company is a school bus company that is very poorly run. When other schools have half days or get out early, it forces the bus for our school to have a late pick up. My son is over 45 minutes late every time. They either do not have enough buses or drivers. This an easily be resolved by the company. It is unacceptable that my son should be getting home that late. He is 7 years old. He has homework to do, dinner to be eaten, a bath and then off to bed. When he gets home late it throws off the whole schedule. And sometimes he has after school activities that he will either be late to or have to miss because he gets home too late. This has to stop! This company must be warned or get in trouble for this! It doesn’t matter how many complaints the school makes or we make, nothing changes. Their staff is less than friendly, very nasty. I will also be reaching out to our school district to fire this company!

• Initial Complaint

  03/12/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  Since August 2023, there have been nothing but problems with this bus company. They set the pick up and drop off times and NEVER stick to them. They want us to wait at the bus stop 5 minutes before thr pickup time but don't show up for up to 40 minutes late for pickups and there were several times it was nearly an hour late for drop offs. Tried to blame it on the school's for late dismissals but the school sends out emails letting parents know busses were held/when they pulled out. Promising the app to do real time tracking, delaying it, delaying it, then finally saying nevermind all together. They tell you it takes 5 days to make changes to a bus route so you plan your life accordingly but then the day after you submit the bus change form they put the changes through without telling you! Not one day has the bus actually arrived at pick up time all school year until yesterday when it arrived a minute early, and then left 3 minutes later. Now today they don't show up at all and when I called to find out how long it was going to be, they told me my kid (who was standing right next to me) was on the bus! Then they said her bus was paused. Then they said she was dropped from the bus, maybe because of another student with the same name, even though she rode it home yesterday. WITHOUT NOTIFYING ME! Also, if there are 2 kids with the same name, YOU DO MORE TO VERIFY YOU ARE DROPPING THE RIGHT ONE than just match names! All the dispatcher had to say was its not their fault and the bus driver is a nice lady. The school did more to apologize to me over the bussing problems than the bus company did. First Student is a huge joke. There is no excuse for this level of incompetence, no remorse or compassion, and I seriously doubt I'll even be getting a phone call to clear up how they absolutely blundered today. Neither of these times is the first I've been late to work because of the bus not showing up on time, but after today I'm so sick of it.

• Initial Complaint

  03/04/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  This bus company has the worst people working for them and dispatch there's never the same driver drivers come all at different times so they expect my kid to stay outside from 6:30 to 7:00 her bus come in between that time frame when you call up there to try to get a decent reasonable time for your child to be standing on the corner that early in the morning they give you attitude they tell you it's not their problem they know where their kid is they act like they don't care and don't know that people children are being kidnapped out here especially young black females you call up there you question them they get aggravated angry and hang up the one lady told me that it was too early for her to be dealing with this and hung up on me very unprofessional I tried to go up there and speak with them administrator and she got rude nothing works nobody's doing nothing about it they need to be shut down everybody in that building needs to be replaced every single person I've been dealing with this for over four years nothing has changed something needs to be done expeditiously

• Initial Complaint

  01/30/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  September 2023-present My son has been riding a First Student bus since September 2023, and we have had issues almost everyday he has rode the bus. The problems we have been facing are the bus arriving 15-20min early and up to 45min late on multiple occasions, they have changed his pick up/drop off times on 4 different occasions without notifying us, canceling his bus at 6am on multiple occasions, and no staff member seems concerned about how this effects our family/other families. The way we find out that his times are changed is by the driver showing up earlier for pick ups and later for drop offs, and when we get out to the bus, they will then notify us that this would be his new time for either the pick up/drop off. We will then plan accordingly for the said change, and they won't stick to that time. The bus has arrived anymore between 7:48am-9:30am since he started riding the bus. The bus monitor, past bus drivers, and office staff justify the poor communication, schedule changes, calling at 6am to cancel his bus, and never showing up at the same time each day by using a plethora of excuses/reasons. We were told at the beginning of the school year by an office staff member "We have a driver shortage, and will show up when we can." This bus company should be calculating the bus routes as best as they can while anticipating traffic and weather changes. My husband and I understand that some days might be tricky with bad Buffalo weather, but this is unacceptable. Him and I both rode the bus growing up, with my husband riding the bus in ***** *******, and myself in ************* (rural/country). Neither one of us experienced the challenges that this bus company is putting us through when we rode the bus as kids. No matter how many times we have talked with the bus monitor, bus drivers, or office staff the problems are still present. The unpredictability of the his school transportation has greatly affected our family and our day to day. We don't understand how this could be considered acceptable or be justified. I hope by reaching out that this is actually looked into, investigated, and solutions are provided.

• Initial Complaint

  01/22/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  Since the beginning of the school year, I've been emailing/calling First Student (locally and at their corporate office) regarding the consistently unsafe practices of one of their drivers. My street has a posted 5mph speed limit due to many young children, some with special needs, living on our street; the driver regularly goes 25-35mph. I've sent their local "Safety Manager" videos and photos of the bus and, while she was initially responsive, she hasn't responded to me for 7 weeks now. Despite her telling me that it would be "illegal" for the bus to not have a bus number, I have not been able to locate it, although I did send her the license plate number (it's also the only bus in the city that goes down our street); it's hard to understand why this has been so difficult to resolve.

• Initial Complaint

  01/10/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unresolved

  More info

  My children are bused to school by first student in the ******* **** School District of ******** County, **. They take bus 717. From 1/2/24-1/5/24 the bus arrived at least 20 minutes late for pickup. On Friday 1/5/24, I had to drive my children to work because the driver did not arrive to work on time. There are several issues with this. The first one is that first student does not have a notification system to let parents and children know how late the bus is running. Because of this, my children have had to wait outside in the cold all four days for 20 minutes or longer. It also causes them to get to school late and miss learning time. On Friday, it caused me to get to work late because I had to take them to school because the driver was so late that they would’ve missed half or all of first period. The most egregious issue is that I called Mike P***** (Bus Depot Manager) on Thursday, Friday, and Monday to inquire about his plan to fix the issue. I left several messages for him and he has not returned my call. This is unacceptable and unprofessional.

  Business response

  01/22/2024

  Michael P***** the LM was out sick the first week of January when this parent tried to call him . This parent was called by the dispatcher Melissa S****** explaining that they had a lot of drivers out due to Covid after the Holidays . We have recently added FirstView to this school district, which is our parent APP, and the parent was instructed to sign up so they will be aware of when the bus should arrive .
  
  Our driver pool has improved the past couple of weeks so they should not be inconvenienced with late buses going forward . 

  Customer response

  01/24/2024

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, reasons for rejection are included below.

  I was not contacted by Melissa. I spoke to her because I continued to try to get in touch with Mike and happened to reach her. I was also not informed of the driver pool being affected by an increase of Covid. I was told specifically by someone in dispatch (not Melissa) that my children’s bus driver was on vacation and that the covering driver had to drive from ********. I was confused by this because that didn’t tell me how they planned to fix the lateness with the bus. Furthermore, I mentioned to the same person in the dispatch office that we are not alerted to when the bus is late and therefore cannot prevent our children from sitting in the cold and waiting for the bus. I was not told about an app at that point. It was not until I called and reached Melissa that I was given that information. Part of the issue could’ve been alleviated with proper communication and knowledge about the first view app. The response from the business is filled with half truth. My next step if this continues to happen is to go as high as I can with the school board. 
  

  I also attached a post via social media about ******* **** Transportation and their rude employees. The post from two days ago shows that the buses have come late and they have not completed educated parents about the first view app to prevent their children from getting to school late.  

  
  Regards,
  
  ******* ********
  

• Initial Complaint

  12/20/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  The bus company on purpose bought buses with new budget money with no air-conditioning. The first three days of school there was a heatwave. Our students were left on the bus for over 45 minutes in those conditions They also on purpose are giving buses that are breaking down for our students. I personally think this bus company is cutting corners and pennypinching to increase profits The safety of our students should be top tier priority. End of story.

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