BATON ROUGE – With the summer break winding down and the school year fast approaching, families in East Baton Rouge Parish preparing again for early morning starts have another factor to consider this year.

Last week, the East Baton Rouge School District sent families a survey, allowing them to opt out of using school buses. The district says could free up vehicles and help with the driver shortage the district is currently experiencing.

According to data collected by Prismatic Solutions, a firm out of North Carolina hired by the district to identify issues within the transportation system, many buses are running less than half-full of students.

They say there are 379 buses managing 801 morning and afternoon routes, serving 93 schools, and many students live further away from their schools and use transfer points.

Two years ago, the transportation issues became apparent when, due to a shortage, students were left stranded and not getting to school on time. Within the first few days of school starting, drivers staged sickouts that led to classes being canceled.

Danielle “Dani” Altazin is the parent of three EBR students. Two years ago, the bus issues encouraged her to become more involved with the school district.

“I knew that that was a problem that was bigger than our schools,” Altazin said. “We’ve always done the community bus stops, which I love. I think that’s one of the better things transportation offers. I’m sure it’s easier for the bus drivers. I’m sure they don’t want to go to 35 different stops.”

Alvin Raetzsch is a parent of four students in East Baton Rouge Parish. Raetzch agreed that the opt-out is a better way to address the bus driver shortage.

Two years ago, Raetzsch says the district didn’t have an opt-in or opt-out system, “Every child, every family got a pick-up, even those that were never going to use it,” Raetzsch said. “It created massive congestion issues with the number of buses and drivers we had. It made the routes longer because they were going to pick up kids that never intended to show up at the stops.”

Altazin says the success of other community bus stops has led her to collaborate with other parents and create their own. It is a central pick-up and drop-off location, typically libraries, spaced out throughout the district, close to homes.

While Altazin says she’s appreciative of the re-organization, she is skeptical about the changes being made so close to the start of the school year. In conjunction with creating the community bus stop, Altazin says she's worried the logistics won’t be solidified in time for school starting.

“My fear was that we had a massive bus shortage again?” she said. “I don’t it’s a bad idea. We should have put this out in May.”

With the changes, both parents say they are approaching the school year with cautious optimism.