Why did some students at Franklin High School have trouble getting ahold of their bus passes in the first couple weeks of school? When over 3,000 students need to ride the buses, that makes a lot of work for the Transportation Office.

Some students have wondered about the way the bus pass system is organized, like FHS sophomore Dan Gurge, who talked about his experience getting a bus pass. He said that he didn’t get it until the second week of school and that the process for getting it was a little confusing. Students like him have been especially invested in bus passes because of the possibility that the failure to get one might result in removal from the buses.

Transportation Coordinator Denise Johnson spoke about the procedure of getting bus passes to students. She handles the bus passes, and has to get them to over 3,000 students. As stated by the Transportation Coordinator, the first step of this process is when students submit their pay to ride applications, or when they apply for a free ride if they are eligible. The applications were due June 17.

A common trend among students that were unable to get passes until the second or third week is that they submitted their applications late. When students do this, their forms need to be tracked separately.

By the time the late requests are accounted for, bus stops have already been created for a couple of thousand students who submitted their forms on time, so new stops might need to be written in for the late applicants, according to the Transportation Coordinator. This slows down the process, which is why a lot of students had difficulty getting their passes.

The safety of students is a top priority for the Transportation Office and Franklin High School, so putting students on a bus that might already be full could be dangerous. Making bus stops for the sake of getting as many kids on the bus as possible could result in unsafe situations.

The supplies are received from an outside source and printed at the Transportation Office. The tracking of applications, creation of stops, and printing of the passes has to be completed between May, when the application forms are first made available, and the week of Aug. 18, when the passes are available for collection.