The recent student transportation rollout for Johnston Public Schools for the academic year 2026–2027 has witnessed significant failures, impacting the daily lives of students and parents. This issue is of urgent concern as it affects the safety and reliability of student transport, an essential aspect of their school experience.

Firstly, there have been numerous reports of delays, miscommunications, and logistical oversights that have grounded the rollout to a halt. Students are left waiting long periods, resulting in missed instruction time and substantial inconvenience for parents and guardians who must adjust their schedules unexpectedly.

A formal review is critical in evaluating what went wrong during this major rollout. We demand a comprehensive root-cause analysis to identify weaknesses and pinpoint exact failings in the transportation strategies that were assumed adequate. No child’s safety should be compromised due to oversight.

Furthermore, accountability measures need to be instated to ensure all responsible parties are held liable. Poor planning and execution cannot continue without repercussions, lest we face repeating these same issues in the future. To achieve this, impartial oversight by an independent body should be an integral part of the corrective action plan.

We seek immediate corrective actions that include revising routing plans, improving communication protocols with families, enhancing training for transport staff, and deploying additional resources as needed. This will ensure that future implementations are smooth, efficient, and secure.

Join us in urging the Johnston Public Schools district administration to take the necessary steps by signing this petition. Your support is vital to ensure safe, efficient, and reliable student transportation for Johnston students, now and in the coming years.

REQUEST FOR FORMAL REVIEW AND CORRECTIVE ACTION

2026-2027 Johnston Public Schools Student Transportation Rollout - August 27, 2026

ADDRESSED TO

Scott Sutherland
Superintendent of Schools

Joseph W. Rotella
Chair, School Committee – District 4

Susan M. Mansolillo
Vice-Chair, School Committee – District 5

Robert A. LaFazia
School Committee – District 1

Dawn M. Aloisio
School Committee – District 2

Mary-Sue Andreozzi
School Committee – District 3

Zachary Gordon
Appointed School Committee Member

Phanida Phivilay
Appointed School Committee Member

Greg Russo
Appointed School Committee Member

Carolyn Thornton Iannuccilli
Appointed School Committee Member

Joseph M. Polisena, Jr.
Mayor, Town of Johnston

Johnston Public Schools: 10 Memorial Avenue, Johnston, RI 02919    Town of Johnston: 1385 Hartford Avenue, Johnston, RI 02919

RE: Formal review and corrective action for the 2026-2027 transportation rollout

Dear Superintendent Sutherland, Chair Rotella, Vice-Chair Mansolillo, Members of the Johnston School Committee, and Mayor Polisena:

We are Johnston parents and guardians requesting a formal, fact-based review of the 2026-2027 student transportation rollout. We appreciate the teachers, school staff, drivers, and others who worked through an extraordinarily difficult opening day. Our concern is the planning, readiness, oversight, communication, and fallback controls that should have prevented the situation from reaching that point.

The problems documented by families went beyond ordinary first-day delays: missing or incomplete route assignments, conflicting stop information, inaccurate parent-app status, children remaining in transportation for hours or being staged at unexpected locations, families unable to determine where their children were, and ineffective escalation channels. Supporting records are attached or identified as exhibits.

Why review is warranted
The district and Zūm announced the partnership in June 2026. On August 19, families were told to expect individualized assignments, designated stops and times, real-time bus tracking, arrival notifications, service updates, and fast assistance through Zūm.

Opening-day conditions did not match those assurances, while district transportation pages still identified Durham School Services and BusZone. The central question is operational readiness: what was tested, what remained unresolved, who knew of those risks, and on what basis the system was authorized to begin transporting students.

The superintendent's recorded message after the first day emphasized loading and unloading procedures, parent photographs, and traffic congestion. Those issues can add delay at individual stops, but they do not explain missing assignments, contradictory stop information, inaccurate boarding status, students transported or staged at unexpected locations, failed escalation channels, or multi-hour delays. If parent behavior is asserted as a material cause, it should be quantified and separated from the system-level failures that require root-cause analysis.

Requested action
1. Public readiness and launch review. Place the rollout on a School Committee agenda with district leadership and Zūm. Identify the readiness criteria and testing completed before opening day, known unresolved issues, and who authorized launch.

2. Factual accounting and student accountability. Report the number of students without finalized assignments, the extent of significant pickup/drop-off delays, the latest completed drop-off, and whether the district could reliably identify which students were aboard each vehicle and where they were. If that information became unreliable, state when the problem was recognized and how it was escalated.

3. Root-cause and responsibility analysis. Identify the principal causes and distinguish responsibility among Zūm, district implementation and oversight, technology/data integration, route and manifest preparation, communications, and other material contributors. Explain obsolete transportation information and ineffective escalation channels. Explain why existing district wide communication methods were not used to notify families while buses were delayed on route for dropoff. Quantify any material contribution attributed to parent behavior.

4. Written corrective-action and student-safety plan. For each material failure, identify the corrective action, owner, target date, and verification method. At minimum, establish one authoritative source for route/stop information; reliable boarding, transfer, and drop-off accountability; a tested manual fallback; a staffed escalation path; reconciliation of driver-facing and parent-facing information; and review of unsafe stop placement.

5. Ongoing oversight, record preservation, and accountability. Preserve relevant route, manifest, GPS, dispatch, app-event, readiness/testing, escalation, communications, and onboard-video records where available. Report progress publicly until performance is stable, identify applicable contractual standards and remedies, and explain how the School Committee will verify corrective actions. Responsibility should follow the evidence.

We are not asking the School Committee to predetermine a personnel outcome. We are asking for facts, accountability, corrective action, and verification. When a parent cannot reliably determine whether a six-year-old child boarded a bus, where that child was taken, or whom to contact, the failure is a breakdown in student-accountability and fallback controls.

We respectfully request written acknowledgment, confirmation of when the rollout will receive substantive public review, and a written response addressing the five areas above or a clear timetable for that response. Our goal is simple: understand what happened, correct it, and prevent a recurrence.

Respectfully submitted,

Johnston parents and guardians

Exhibit A: Superintendent Scott Sutherland's recorded district-wide transportation message following the first day of service; original audio retained separately.

August 26, 2026 | 8:00 PM

“This is a message from Johnston public schools.  Good evening, parents and families.  Thank you for all your patience and understanding as we work through our 1st day of school.  We understand they were frustrations without bus routes today and we sincerely appreciate your patience as we work through the challenges that naturally come of the 1st day.  Today was a particularly significant transition for our district with a new elementary school route, a new transportation company, and new administrators working together to manage transportation across the district.  We are committed to making improvements each day.  We also experience significant congestion during morning drop off.  We understand that many families want to take pictures and enjoy that special 1st day moment with their children.  Beginning tomorrow, we're asking your assistance and keeping traffic moving safely and efficiently.  Our school teams just concluded our review of the school day and we have made significant improvements for tomorrow and we're asking for your help as well. [For] morning drop off, if you are driving your child to school, please do not arrive more than 10 minutes before your child schedule start time.  Arriving within this 10 minute window will help us maintain a steady flow of traffic and prevent vehicles from backing up around our schools before our buses get there.  For the Windsor Hills elementary school community.  This morning, Windsor Hill Roads were blocked by parked vehicles which prevented our 28 buses serving Windsor Hill Elementary School from accessing the school to drop off our kindergarten in grade one students.  This created delays not only at Windsor Hill, but also impacted transportation to Johnson Elementary School.  We will have traffic enforcement tomorrow to help us in the morning and again at dismissal, to keep the flow of traffic.…”

Exhibit B: Johnston Public Schools transportation communication dated August 19, 2026; source record retained separately.

The district communication told families to expect individualized transportation assignments, designated stops, pickup and drop-off times, real-time bus location tracking, arrival notifications, and service updates, and directed families to Zūm for the fastest assistance.

Exhibit C: Johnston Public Schools transportation webpages that continued to identify Durham School Services / BusZone during the Zūm transition, as of August 27, 2026.

 

 

Exhibit D: Zūm public announcement of the Johnston Public Schools partnership, June 2026; relevant excerpts.

Johnston Public Schools & Scituate School Department Select Zum to Modernize Student Mobility

By: Zum Community Team | June 16, 2026

Relevant excerpts from the public announcement:

The announcement states that Johnston Public Schools selected Zūm to modernize student transportation beginning in the 2026-2027 school year and that Zūm would cover all routes for Johnston Public Schools.

Superintendent Scott Sutherland stated: “Getting students to school safely and on time is essential to student success. Through this partnership with Zum, we will be able to provide families with greater transparency and real-time information while strengthening the reliability and efficiency of our transportation operations.”

The announcement also described real-time bus tracking, proactive notifications, clear communication, and app-based student pickup and drop-off status as features intended to give families visibility into each ride.

Full public source retained separately; original announcement identified www.ridezum.com as the source site.