BY CHRIS QUARTARONE

For the most part, Bedford school buses and their drivers have been on time in recent weeks. This is a big relief to parents and the school district.

Since school began Aug. 29, many students and parents have been left waiting for buses that were either late or never arrived to take children to school.

Bedford School District Chief Financial Officer Mark Conrad said at the beginning of the school year the town expected 36 buses with drivers, but  Goffstown Truck Center Inc. provided nine fewer drivers than needed.

The company was able to hire spare drivers for some of the vacancies, but routes still suffered.

Over the past month, school administrators worked hard  getting the company to provide buses on schedule. However, there is still work to do, said Conrad.

“The situation is not where we want it to be yet but it’s getting there,” he said, “We’ve been able to stabilize the problems and bring back predictability for parents.”

To help with the problem, bus routes were consolidated making individual routes longer. In the meantime, Goffstown Truck Center hired spare drivers as well as training new ones.

Bedford parents like Brandi Nimmo, who has four children in four different schools in Bedford, said buses have been running on time since the school district addressed the problem.  

“We’ve had to be very patient with bus issues,” she said, “During the first few weeks of school, we were waiting up to 45 minutes for our kids. But now things seem almost back to normal.”

Conrad is happy with the progress but said, “It will be another month at least until things are exactly where they should be.”