Transportation FAQ's

Your child’s information is automatically sent to the Transportation Department when you register or enroll at your school. If the student is eligible for bus service (see above), they will automatically be assigned a bus route. 

The Bus Route information can be seen on ParentVUE. Please also see the Bus Routes page to locate your students bust stop, route, and time information.

Check your ParentVUE app. 

School bus stops are placed in centralized locations.  Each student’s home address is evaluated and the closest bus stop is assigned based upon walking distance criteria established by School Board Administrative Regulations.

The guideline walk distance for elementary students is 3 blocks; middle school students is 4 blocks; high school students is 5 blocks. A block is 1/10th of a mile or 528 feet.

No, please use the assigned bus stop. This is configured based on distance students might need to walk and space on the bus.

Students should be at their designated stop and ready to board 5 minutes prior to the scheduled stop time.  Traffic and other circumstances can cause the bus to be early or late on any given day. Our Transportation Department uses the atomic clock for all routes.

Not necessarily. Due to the smaller number of students, after-school routes are more generic in nature and are generated to serve a larger area of the District. For this reason, a student’s regular route stop may be closer to their home than the corresponding after-school route stop. 

Escorting your child to/from the bus stop is not required however, it is highly recommended for kindergarten and first grade students, especially at the beginning of the school year.  It is also highly recommended for any student who may have difficulty navigating their way to/from the bus stop

Yes, provided the day care is within your school’s attendance area. This would be your student's designated stop every day.

Please complete the alternate transportation form if you are requesting for your student to be picked up and/or dropped off at a location other than their home address on a regular, established schedule. All requests apply to the current school year only. Please allow up to 5 business days for your request to be routed.

Wednesday bus times are always an hour different. For Elementary and Hanby, the bus will arrive one hour earlier than the published times on these route sheets or in your ParentVue. On Wednesdays for Scenic and the High School, the bus will deliver home one hour later in the morning to pick your child up for school.

You may contact the Transportation Department at 541.494.6931.

Generally no.  Exceptions may be made on a case by case basis.  Permission must be arranged in advance and approved by the School Principal and Transportation Administration. 

While the District has no policy regarding maximum ride times, regular education routes serving a school's attendance area are designed to operate with travel times of 45 minutes or less. Routes serving after school programs, K-8 schools, special education programs, and options schools may exceed this travel time due to the extended geographic area involved. 

The National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Department of Transportation and other authorities agree that school buses are the safest form of transportation for getting children to and from school. According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, a child is 8 times safer in a school bus than when riding in a parent's vehicle. Some 475,000 school buses carry 25 million children each day, rarely with any serious accident.

Safety features of school bus include:

• The color and size of school buses make them easily visible and identifiable
• The height of school buses provides good driver visibility and raises the passenger compartment above car impact height
• School bus construction includes reinforced sides to protect passengers from side impacts
• School bus lights provide distinctive warning to alert other motorists to the presence of a school bus stop
• School buses are carefully designed using what is called "passive restraint", meaning all a child must do to be protected is sit down in a seat

One of the greatest safety features of the school bus is the driver. They receive specialized training in student behavior management, loading and unloading, security and emergency medical procedures.

First Student Drivers participate in pre-employment and random drug/alcohol testing, as well as frequent driving record checks, and submit to background checks and periodic medical exams to keep their Commercial Driver's License (CDL) with a School Bus Endorsement.

First Student drivers are required to attend an average of 8 hours of classroom in-service training each year. Most FS drivers attend many more hours than are required. 

Each bus has the route number displayed next to the front door on the passenger side and under the driver’s window on the driver’s side with white numbers on a black background. 

Your student's routing information includes the bus route number. To access this information please see the Bus Routes page. 

Students who board the wrong bus should notify the bus driver as soon as possible.  The school will be notified, and the bus driver will return the student to school.

Students whose transportation needs are addressed through an IEP (Individualized Education Program), are eligible for “curbside” service. This service is typically reserved for situations where a less restrictive environment is not possible, or where medical issues require this type of service.

For other students living in non-rural areas, stops are placed at centralized locations that can be safely accessed by a significant number of students to minimize the time length and mileage of the run. If you have concerns about your child’s safety you are encouraged to accompany your child to the bus stop or arrange a neighborhood buddy to walk with your child. 

Transportation services are also provided to students qualifying for Transportation services under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. For support, please phone 541.494.6224.

Transportation for Special Needs students is generated through the Special Education Department. The student’s IEP team will determine if transportation is a related service as part of the student’s overall needs assessment.  The Transportation Department will receive notification from the Special Education Department and will contact families via letter and/or phone calls with the bus stop location, pick up, and drop off times

Bus service is not available during the day to transport sick students home.  Families must make their own arrangements to pick up students who become ill during the school day and need to go home.

School buses have to endure the same traffic conditions that plague commuters. A traffic snarl, traffic accident or a longer than scheduled loading at a previous bus stop can easily throw your bus 10-15 minutes off schedule.

Please be patient and allow at least 15 minutes before calling Dispatch at 541.494.6934.

Oregon Revised Statues do not permit insects, reptiles, or animals of any type except for approved guide or assistance animals. 

The Central Point School District student must have a written note signed by the parent/guardian and school secretary/administrator.  The note should be given to the driver, and the student may only ride if there is space on the bus and no additional stops would be required.  A note must be provided for each occurrence. 

Seat assignments are a positive way for the ride to be consistent and safe. This aids the driver and school staff with student management. Drivers have the authority to assign seats as they deem necessary. 

Federal and State Transportation regulations only permit the students to depart the bus at their designated stop or at school.  Only a district staff member may remove a student from the bus at school.  This is for the safety and security of all students. 

Musical instruments in a case may be transported provided there is space on the bus and the instrument can be secured by the student.

Glass or any object that could potentially injure students cannot be transported on the bus. Large items that cannot be safely stored on the students lap may not be transported on the bus. These objects can become very hazardous in the event of a collision. 

All buses are equipped with a two-way radio. The dispatch office is in communication with buses at all times and radio transmissions are monitored by the district’s Transportation staff.  

The district uses video surveillance systems inside buses to help monitor student activity and provide students with the safest possible ride. Video systems allow the driver to spend more time concentrating on the road and what is going on around them instead of constantly looking in the rear view mirror to see what is occurring inside the bus.

During hazardous winter weather conditions, Central Point School District administrators drive roads to evaluate conditions in relation to bus safety and communicate with weather forecasting professionals.  School closure or delayed-start decisions are typically be made and posted on the District website by 5:30 AM. Families will also be notified by phone and/or text message through the ParentSquare system. Also, check our website and social media.

We encourage and support families to make attendance decisions for your child(ren) based on your own assessment of travel conditions at your location.

Some routes and stops may be eliminated when snow routes are used.  On inclement weather days, First Student will provide information on any time delays and whether or not we are operating snow routes.

Seat belts are not required in school buses because research by the state Department of Transportation and others determined that compartmentalization was a better solution. Some of the key arguments favoring compartmentalization over seat belts are: 

1. Compartmentalization is more manageable. The protective surfaces exist in place without depending on any action by the children or any extra special supervision by the drivers. Seat belts require discipline and supervision to keep them clean, unraveled and in use. 
2. Compartmentalization works equally well for 1, 2 or 3 students per seat. Today's 39" wide standard seats may contain three small children or two large ones, or any combination in between. Arranging seat belts to properly handle any combination is difficult, if not impossible. The best known solution with seat belts is to restrict each seat to two students and two belts, which has the disadvantage of sharply reducing the carrying capacity of bus fleets. 
3. Compartmentalization works whether students have fully developed abdominal areas or not. Conventional seat belts, which are lap restraints only, are not suitable for small children whose abdominal area and bone structure are not adequately developed to take the force of a lap belt alone. They need the help of chest harnesses also, which adds to the complexity of a proper seat belt solution. 
4. Compartmentalization, once it has done its energy-absorbing job, leaves the student free to escape the bus. Seat belts could leave students strapped in, upside down, perhaps unconscious, in burning or flooding buses. 

Yes, emergency drills are an important part of providing save student transportation and are conducted twice per year at all of our schools.

Call Dispatch at 541.494.6934 as soon as you know an item has been left behind. The dispatcher will attempt to contact the driver to locate the item. In most cases, your student will be able to retrieve the item the next time they ride the bus. Items of high monetary value are turned into Dispatch for safekeeping. 

Transportation may be available depending on several factors, including whether it's located in your child's school boundary and non-transportation zone. 

It's critical that you notify your child's school of all address changes immediately to avoid extended delays in bus routing changes.  If your student is eligible for transportation, new stop information will be provided within five school days once the school updates your address.

If your move has placed you in the school's non-transportation zone, your student will no longer be eligible for bus service.