State with University, Kentucky's M K U students rather and you see, students are back for their first day in college. Of course, on Thursday, it was the first day of school for many districts, including Cincinnati public And as we know that metro busing, they change their routes a little bit this year, or lotsa may say to facilitate getting kids to and from school. The problem, though, is that they decided to make this announcement of three weeks before school started, which a lot of people predicted would be an unmitigated disaster. From parents I talked to in the district, they said. All right, well, generally speaking, the going isn't that big a deal. But apparently, dismissal is a little bit of a problem. So the question is, then is this whole thing a tempest in teapot in that the what? What predicted would happen did not happen or Where the critics right to begin with going. This thing screwed up from the jump. Let me get on. Ryan Master. He's vice president of the Cincinnati Public School board. Good Morning, Ryan. How you been? Good morning. Scott. Doing well, Thanks. Good. Good. Uh, So where are we This morning? Here? What reports? Are you getting? What have you seen over? Um, in extremely small, small sample group. And that would be the 1st and 2nd. And now into the third day of school, What are we seeing relative that is no butter out. Well, you know, if you know I'm not just a member of the school board. I'm also a parent. And, you know, I think that, um even dropping my kids off at North Avondale Montessori was absolutely nuts on Thursday. You had people that were going to the wrong location in the school people that were jumping out to take family photos. There was just it was kind of mayhem. And as I always say, there's no traffic like first day of school traffic, right, But that's but that's typical in every district, right. Is it like you got new parents? New people may be new schools also the excitement of the first day. Parents don't want to miss that. Because we're all hands on these days, right? And is that is that dismissible just the first day of school, which is nothing exclusive to CPS. It happens everywhere is that true? I agree. I think it's there is a portion of the return to school that you know, I've just come to expect now. Three years in of dropping kids off today was much better. Tomorrow will be even better going forward. Now, on top of that. Then we have this complexity of, um the, uh, change from the sort of extra routes to using the sorta, um Poll routes and that's been her added change to the entire situation. And, frankly, 99% of what I've heard, um, are related to Those changes of metro things that have been negative. And 99% of those have frankly been specifically about Walnut hills. And you know, there are a couple things that I think, make that challenging. A. We already know, even as we were trying to get kids back in school. There are so many kids that just figuring out things within the building, but they have to come and go from that school, so that creates another, um, really complex situation. Something that will not his parents and her neighbors of mine said it is. It's always been a nightmare. Now. Has this made it worse? Possibly. But what I know is life is 1%. What happened to 99%, how you prepare and then handle it. And I do believe metro CPS and the city. I'm filling in for our President, Carolyn Jones here for a couple of weeks while she's had a surgical procedure, and I've been watching each of the groups groups coming together every single day to say, what do we heard? What changes do we need to make? What house did a gone? What changes do we need to make? So I think we're moving in the right direction. Okay, overall. How satisfied? Typically do you think parents in the district are with with this bus name was it We went from everything to the sky is falling that kids are going to be lost. There will be abandoned the be like buoys floating endlessly in the sea. By themselves, and this is going to be cataclysmic. And then we heard from the other side, which in general, the metro folks and listen, we do transportation. We got this. It's not that big a deal. Where's the truth on that? Yeah, I've kind of tried to be very, um Thoughtful about the assessment of the situation. And as I said to our superintendent earlier today, I think an F A Q document for the community would be very helpful because I've at least learned quite a few things along the way that have helped me be much more okay with where we are today versus maybe where I was when I heard about the change, Um But overall, um and I've I've calmed through my emails and other Facebook post and that type of thing. There are some nuances for sure. Um, couple of things that specifically I've heard. Oh, my child has to do a couple of transfers. Take them a long time to get there. When I dug in the one child was coming from mount Airy all the way to Hyde Park to Clark Montessori. And then another and was coming from college Hill coming to Walnut. Those are not easy routes by car. And so one of the things that I think is kind of a Put us in a difficult position areas at CPS. We've given school of choice parents, no matter where you live, can pick the school that you feel best fits your needs. But that also comes with some complexity. You know, trying to get from here to there? Yeah, and even with the extra routes Too many of those complex Ralph even required transfers with the extra Ouch. Um, So some of these things I think we have to, um, take the step up and kind of look at the entire situation. Now there are some others where pay this bus stop is not optimal for this kid has to walk, you know, X number of distance. To get to a stop. Those are the specifics that we need the parents to utilize. Uh, you know the district to work with Metro to make some adjustments because there will be tweaks. We have 36,000 kids. You know, there's there's 36,000.