Late buses for all CFISD schools were discontinued the previous school year due to the budget cuts the school board decided. Due to the many complaints from parents, they were brought back for the 2025-2026 school year. These late buses are vital, because many students at Bridgeland use the late buses to get home from school after their extracurricular activities or tutoring.
Without a ride home from tutorials, students wouldn’t be able to go; this would lead to many more students failing classes. This could lead to Bridgeland getting lower scores on the STAAR or SAT. “Late buses are really important because then it allows for more students to stay after school for tutorials,” Freshman Luke Moreland said.
If someone couldn’t get a ride home after school, then they would have to walk home. Also a walk home could be dangerous for those who live farther away; busy roads are not a safe space for wandering students. “I was walking home, [and] I had to do a crosswalk to get across a neighborhood. And whenever I was walking, I checked both sides, and then in the distance, I saw a car start going faster. I had to quickly get to the other side because I didn’t want to be close to the car as it went zooming by,” Moreland said.
Students walking home and almost being struck by vehicles is a problem that was luckily addressed by the district, now that late buses are back. The district also added 14.1 miles of sidewalks around 13 different campuses to address this problem. Late buses can also be very helpful for parents who don’t have the time to pick their children up from school every day. “If their parents can’t give them a ride, then they can ride the late bus,” Moreland said.
Though late buses are very key to Bridgeland High School, they also cost the district a lot of money, with the CFISD website stating that transportation is 4.9% of the total spending. To cut down on district spending, the district got rid of on-campus librarians. There are now only 42 district librarians, who rotate from school to school. ‘‘I’m not a fan of the new librarian system. I understand the need for it, but reducing presence in the library has impacted my students and their desire and even their consideration of going to it,” English II Teacher Misty Miller said. Some people think that librarians should have been reinstated, but late buses are far more important because, without them, far fewer people would be able to do extracurricular activities. While libraries are important, according to the district, there isn’t enough revenue to go around.
Late buses are extremely important to Bridgeland as a whole, and without them being reinstated, test scores would go down, there wouldn’t be as many students in sports and students could be hit by cars while walking home.
