By the time bus driver Jesus Banda pulled up to Cesar Chavez High School, the warning bell had already rung. 

At about 8:40 a.m. Tuesday, his bus was the last to arrive, carrying about a dozen students to the North Stockton school where classes had started 10 minutes earlier. 

This sort of tardiness isn’t supposed to occur. But it’s become a regular issue, and not just for him. Across Stockton Unified schools, drivers have said for weeks that their buses have been continually running late. They say that the delays are compounded by poor communication and route planning from management at the district’s transportation department. 

“There are problems everywhere, but not on this scale” Banda told Stocktonia after his Tuesday drop off at the high school. 

It’s an issue that’s been raised publicly as Banda and dozens of other union represented bus drivers have packed board meetings since late August. 

“They care for our most precious resource,” said Louise Barros, the drivers’ labor representative, at a recent board meeting. “This is not a workforce you want to stress out.” 

Barros, who joined the SUSD bus drivers across the street from the district building Tuesday, said routes this school year were solely developed by transportation director Kathryn Powell, who has been with the district since 2023 after working for the Pajaro Valley Unified School District. 

And although the director is not obligated to take anyone else’s input, Barros explained that in years past, route planners and bus driver specialists helped the director structure the routes.

In a statement, SUSD spokesperson Melinda Meza said the district told the union during a Sept. 1 meeting that rebuilding the year’s bus routes would not fully resolve the “transportation related issues,” as staffing vacancies and employee absences have also contributed to “route inconsistencies.”

According to the statement, the district also offered to “rebid transportation routes immediately,” which they say the union declined, instead requesting a side letter agreement. A side letter is a written agreement between a union and an employer.

The union has since said that the district has yet to respond to its side letter request and sent a letter to the board and Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez on Sept. 21 saying that it took a vote of no confidence against Powell.

Barros said the district’s emphasis on absenteeism makes it seem as though drivers are to blame for the late buses.

“It’s very frustrating because the routes — it’s a holistic problem. It’s not just one route that’s got a problem or two routes. It’s everything,” Barros said. In years past, SUSD has had fewer drivers without running into the problems it’s experiencing this year, she said.

“There are drivers who have been here for over a decade,” she added. “And this [year] is the worst they’ve ever seen it.”

It’s a “hot mess,” Barros told board members, something parents have begun to notice, too.

When she’s behind the wheel, 10-year bus driver Molly Moua said parents have angrily asked, “What’s going on?” 

And as a parent whose child attends Chavez High, she’s experienced the delays firsthand. Once, she said, the bus her child was on was more than an hour late.

“We’re still hanging on because of the kids. They rely on us,” said Moua, adding that many of the employees protesting Tuesday were also parents. 

When asked if a representative from the transportation department or the director could speak with Stocktonia, Meza said department management could not comment because the matter involved union negotiations.

Instead, Meza shared a statement from Rodriguez, who said the district is taking “personnel concerns that have been brought forward seriously” and is investigating through the district’s constituent services department.

‘Treat the drivers with respect’

The work environment inside the district’s transportation department is one that Banda described as “ugly;” some of his fellow drivers have claimed to have been yelled at over the bus radio.

During an August meeting, Banda told the seven-member board that he had even noticed at least eight or nine drivers who were no longer with the transportation department, speculating that they had been either fired or quit. 

There’s no “igualdad,” or equality, inside the transportation department, he said. 

“Pido que se nos trate con respeto y no con gritos,” Banda told the board in Spanish. Treat the drivers with respect, not with yells, he said. 

It’s gotten to the point where Nubia Vargas, who as a school bus specialist for the district has duties both in the transportation office and as a driver, has had to quit after more than four years with the district. 

“We are all adults and employees who come to work every day to serve our students in our district,” Vargas told the board as her voice trembled. “No employee should have to tolerate being yelled at or humiliated in the workplace”

For two more weeks, she’d plea with the district to do something. But on Tuesday, she’d announced her breaking point: She had resigned the day before. 

“We hold you accountable, Ms. Rodriguez,” said Vargas, as the superintendent scribbled in her notebook. As resounding “yeses” came from the crowd of bus drivers behind her, Vargas’ voice had steadied.

That Tuesday, just before the sun set and they left for the next morning’s shift, Vargas and a few dozen drivers stood across the street from the district building, shouting and holding signs that read, “Respect the people behind the wheel” and “Just be fair, treat us right so we can sleep good at night.” 

Honks from passing cars would meet their chants, one even from a passing county bus. 

Vargas held a “management failed” sign as she shared that she had started therapy because of what she had experienced at work, including comments from transportation leadership that shamed her weight, mocked her intelligence or scrutinized her makeup.

Other drivers in the crowd had similar claims. Some said they had started avoiding the office altogether. 

But despite Vargas’ rocky experience, she plans to come back, once management shows “respect” for drivers like her. 

“I love to drive. I love to interact with the students. I always did,” she said. “Even my coworkers say ‘You’re happier when you’re outside.’”