CHARLOTTESVILLE (WINA) – After having to increase walking routes last year, and starting this school year behind the 8-ball…. Charlottesville schools finally have enough bus drivers to bring their student wait list to zero. Sherri Eubanks — ops manager for Charlottesville Pupil Transportation at CAT — says they whittled down during the fall the wait list from 800 when the school years started to 250 by January 2. But now those final 250 have buses… and the rerouting and implementing new drivers indeed caused confusion for parents and students the first week of the new semester — because routes and bus numbers weren’t unveiled until right before emerging from winter break.

She notes, for instance, a student who got on the bus in the afternoon because that’s where his bus was everyday, He was brought back to school after the driver stopped at every stop and he didn’t get off. Eubanks says issues like this are not uncommon, and this student didn’t think about having a new bus number.

She says the major kinks are ironed out, and in many cases students are having shorter bus rides than the routes they started the school year on.