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Chicago Public Schools officials said Friday the district has made progress in student transportation after a difficult fall.

CEO Pedro Martinez told the school board that 148 students with disabilities are waiting for a school bus ride, up from about 1,200 at the start of the school year. He said a complaint to the Illinois State Board of Education over the district’s failure to provide transportation to students with disabilities was closed. And the district is preparing to begin offering transportation to a small number of general education students in selective enrollment or magnet schools for the first time since the 2022-23 school year.

Martinez said that on Dec. 9, the district would launch a pilot program in which select campuses would serve as transportation centersstarting with several schools located in disadvantaged neighborhoods. The district chooses these centralized pick-up and drop-off campuses using its Opportunity Index, a metric that takes into account student demographics, neighborhood characteristics and other metrics, the district chief said. school.

Families eligible for rides from those centers to their schools will receive calls the week of Thanksgiving, he said. More school hubs will be added later this school year, provided the configuration does not worsen travel times and transportation access for students with disabilities.

“I promise you we will not stop working on this issue,” Martinez said.

In recent years, the district has struggled to provide transportation to students, and its efforts to resolve the problem have been repeatedly criticized, even as officials blamed a national shortage of bus drivers and a strike at one of its transportation contractors this fall. Last school year, after the state launched an investigation into the district’s problems with busing students with disabilities, the district stopped providing transportation to general education students.

Advocates for students with disabilities filed their latest complaint with the state this fall, alleging that CPS violates a federal law that requires districts to provide transportation services to students with disabilities. Martinez said that complaint has been resolved.

But CPS Parents for Buses, a group formed last year in response to transportation concerns, noted in a statement that district leaders said this summer they would test the hub model during the first quarter of the year.

“It is inexcusable that, two months after the start of the school year, some students with disabilities still lack transportation, and thousands of low-income and English learners still do not have a safe way to get to school. “school,” the group said.

CPS officials said they receive new transportation requests daily, and some students waiting for transportation have requested them in recent weeks.

“Our top priority remains getting our students with disabilities using bus lines within 10 days of requesting them,” Martinez said.

Charles Mayfield, district operations director, said the district added new transportation providers and had 835 drivers this fall, up from about 720 two years ago. In response to a question from board member Debbie Pope, he said the district estimates it would need about 1,300 drivers to provide rides to all students whose families request them.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at [email protected].