Parents Cite Miscommunication Over SFDR-CISD Bus Service
- Stevie Quilo
- 12 hours ago
- 7 min read
The first day of school did not go as planned for many students enrolled in the New Tech Academy at San Felipe Memorial Middle School (SFMMS) this year. The 2025 rezoning of SFDR-CISD middle schools caused a demand on the bus system that the District was not able to accommodate transportation needs for some students. According to parents, unclear bus routes, last minute changes to pick-up procedures, lack of posted notices, and a general sense of what seems to be miscommunication left a significant portion of New Tech and SFMMS families in a lurch.
Parents were alerted via Facebook on Friday August 8 (the weekend prior to the first day of school August 11) that direct bus transportation would no longer be available for a certain population of New Tech students. Anyone who lives outside the SFMMS neighborhood zone would not be provided door-to-door bus service. Faced with a last-minute lack of transportation, some students had no option but to transfer schools in order to maintain access to the bus service.
While our goal is to remain neutral on these topics, we included Dr. Carlos H. Rios on an email to District staff but did not receive a response from him. We have since submitted a formal information request and are awaiting a response in order to present both sides of the situation.
Del Rio News Network (DRNN) spoke to three parents whose children were directly impacted by the bus change. And each of those three parents had spoken to several others who shared similar experiences. DRNN also drove to SFMMS to observe the first day of school pick-up and interviewed a handful of parents in person. Most witnesses wished to remain anonymous for various reasons.
Parents were sweating in their cars, rushing from picking up another child from an elementary school across town, or from their place of work during a quick break, trying their best to get to the SFMMS campus on time. Students were seen waiting outside in the 100-degree heat, some for over an hour. Even the parents who arrived early were confused, not knowing which side street or gate to meet their children. Parents reported being told incorrect student pick-up locations by the District.
A parent reported: “The sudden change of transportation is an inconvenience to my family… I feel that New Tech families are being punished for choosing a program that the District created. Moving my child to [Del Rio Middle School] entails more than just a move. It’s moving her out of her [sports team] that I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on, just to move her to the school that does not have space her on that team... This also means pulling her from a program that she has grown to like. It’s not fair for her to be taken out due to poor planning and disregarding all of the families who rely on the bus transportation near our residence.”
Given a two-day advance notice, some students who had to transfer schools subsequently missed the opportunity to attend the orientation or sports team tryouts for Del Rio Middle School or Garfield. For the students who stayed enrolled in New Tech, their parents spent the weekend of August 9-10 “scrambling” to arrange transportation for their sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Shuttle pick-up spots were offered as a partial solution, but parents would still be required to drive their child to the shuttle pick-up locations (Plaza del Sol Mall or Bel Furniture). The shuttle was only made available for morning transportation; afternoon transportation was solely up to the parents.
Alyssa Werley gave permission for DRNN to include her name in the article. Werley enrolled her son in New Tech because he expressed interest in the robotics program. She said, “he does really good in school, so I wanted something different for him... to get a head start.” She is a working mom and said, “I’m not able to leave every day and pick him up.” She had been calling asking for bus information ahead of the first day of school but never received a clear answer. Then, when she heard the shuttle announcement on August 8, she immediately transferred her son out of New Tech the same day. It was his first year of middle school and his first time riding a school bus. Werley said, “he didn’t know where to go."
A parent forwarded an email correspondence they exchanged with Superintendent Dr. Carlos Rios on August 12. Rios emailed the parent and said: “The initial intent was to provide transportation only in the AM. I apologize if this was not conveyed. Over the next week, Mrs. Sandra T. Hernandez will work with the Transportation Department to determine if a bus is available to provide afternoon shuttle to the mall parking lot.”
Rios followed up with an email to the parent stating: “We all agree that providing transportation would be the best option for all parents and students. However, we never intended to provide transportation in the afternoon because if parents are not present to pick up students at the moment the bus arrives we would in essence drop-off kids in a commercial zone far away from their homes.”
Rios went on to say in his email: “We are trying to resolve the problem by providing transportation to their homes or near their homes. However, we may not have enough buses or drivers to provide this type of transportation at a reasonable time. It is because of the shortage of buses that magnet programs throughout the State do not provide transportation. We hope to have a solution very soon.”
The magnet program of New Tech is a lottery system where students can apply to attend the program rather than attending the school assigned to their specific neighborhood zones. Last year, bus service was provided to all New Tech students no matter what their address was. The majority of affected families live in the “North Side” of Del Rio, with no middle school nearby. The closest middle school to them is Del Rio Middle School, which is still across town.
A parent reported: “Transportation should be available especially because there is no middle school near my home as there should be. Both parents work and we had already arranged our schedule accordingly. Letting parents know via a Facebook post that there would be a shuttle from the mall the Friday before school started was not enough time to rearrange and prepare for this. The location and time are inconvenient because the elementary schools open at 7:15 am and even being there on time waiting for the gates to open doesn’t give us time to get through morning traffic to make it to the mall. The first day, the shuttle did not show up and made me late for work. I had to drive her across town.”
It appears that this year the only New Tech students provided with bus service are Del Rio residents who are located more than 2 miles away from the school but still fall within the SFMMS neighborhood zone. The majority of the SFMMS neighborhood zone is within a two-mile radius of the school. Therefore, there are just a few pockets of residents who qualify for SFMMS bus service. Those people live in a small cluster of homes tucked away behind River Road, and the stretch of neighborhoods that extend up Eagle Pass Hill (Hwy 277 South).
The SFMMS neighborhood zone boundaries for SFMMS follow the railroad tracks, the San Felipe Creek, and runs all the way up Eagle Pass Hill. The neighborhood zones could not be found formally posted anywhere on SFRCISD website or social media accounts. Boundary approximations were made based on the “school locator” address look-up.
A parent reported: “New Tech is supposed to be for any child in Del Rio that wants that option. Now they are making it so only children with parents who can take them and drop them off can go…. How are working parents supposed to be able to afford their children the education they want and deserve? The school decided to change their ways this year with NO WARNING… The notice was only posted on Facebook. No parent was called, texted, emailed, nothing.”
According to parents, the changes were not effectively communicated in an appropriate manner or reasonable timeframe. Ambiguous information led many parents to draw their own conclusions. A parent reported that, “during orientation, all the District said was they were working on bus routes.” Shuttles were not mentioned at the SFMMS orientation. The parent felt they were misinformed and “led to believe” bus service would be available to all New Tech students.
Evidence suggests the District knew there could be issues with bus service as early as May 2025, three months before informing parents of the disruption. The District was working through complications but did not appropriately clue in parents about the potential lack of bus availability. The only hint was one email survey sent on May 28, an email parents said they missed. The survey asked, “How likely would your New Tech Academy student take the morning shuttle bus to school?”
The District heavily relied on their SFDR-CISD Facebook to communicate critical updates. Parents reported having to repeatedly call the District phone line looking for updates. A parent said, “at the very least, the District should provide information ahead of time, so we don’t get our hopes up.”
If you have more information related to this story, please email Stevie Quilo at <Stevie@DelRioNews.com>.
Read more about the middle school rezoning and grade reconfiguration here: SFDRCISD TO IMPLEMENT MIDDLE SCHOOL GRADE RECONFIGURATION FOR THE 2025-2026 SCHOOL YEAR
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