Schools, parents scramble for alternatives when buses don't run - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

IPS School 91 principal Margaret Higgs was busy on the phones Friday.

"At this point we're not sure it will be running," she told a parent, referring to a bus operated by Durham, an outside contractor.

"The teacher called me," says Sarah Pastrick, a student's mother.

IPS schools sent out phone alerts to all parents with students taking buses, advising that some of those buses could be hours late.

"It was scary," Pastrick said. "I thought it's going to be a really big disaster, a big problem. I didn't know how they were going to handle the magnitude of it happening."

But IPS schools seemed to manage the unexpected afternoon job action by drivers on about 200 routes.

Instead of getting their buses ready for afternoon pickups, Durham Bus Service drivers were at a city park planning a protest, while their union reps pleaded with them to go to work.

The Durham drivers were upset over letters from the state demanding they pay back hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of dollars in unemployment benefits.

The state claims they weren't entitled to the money during school summer break under a new law. But workers say no one told them.

"The state is pointing to the company and the company is pointing to the state," said AFSCME local president Grigitte Yancey.

At school, staffers made sure kids had a place to wait until parents, or late-running buses, came for them.

But some Durham drivers were on the job. "Why am I here?," asked bus monitor Elaine Baird. She said she didn't want to hurt parents and students. "I love these children, that's what we're here for, the children. But we have to understand that business is business. We don't want to feel defrauded."

Some parents weren't ready to blame the drivers.

"I think it's the price that we pay when we allow public services to be subcontracted to private companies," said father Phil Kitchell, who picked up his son.

But other parents didn't like the circumstances.

"They're taking it out on the people who don't pay 'em," Jay Rose said of the drivers. It's not like the kids did it or not like parents didn't give them what they want."