Colorado parent shares concerns about Denver school bus transportation

Some Denver Public School parents say they no longer trust the bus system after repeated delays and missed stops.

Angela Selzer, a DPS parent, believes school buses are supposed to bring peace of mind. But, this year, she said they have brought fear and frustration.

"This was the first year where things were really going poorly," Selzer said. "Twice, they were either 60 minutes late or 90 minutes late, and we had had multiple phone calls to DPS transportation with no return call, no information."

Selzer's son, Wulfie, is a fifth grader at Mcmeen Elementary School, who rides the bus. He said the delays happened regularly at the beginning of the school year.

"It was a funny coincidence when school started, and the bus was late, like, for example, ... every single week, it would be late in the morning, and then, another day that week, it'd be late in the afternoon," Wulfie said. "It kept going like that for weeks."

Selzer said the problems have been overwhelming -- late buses, missed stops and little communication from the district. She said her route has improved, but she is not confident the fix will last.

"I really don't have an explanation for what happened, what steps were taken, and what solutions have been made," Selzer said. "So we don't have a lot of confidence that that's going to be consistent."

Selzer added the district's new bus-tracking app has been unreliable.

In a statement, DPS acknowledged challenges at the start of the school year. 

DPS statement 

"Denver Public Schools Transportation Department acknowledges that they have faced some challenges to the start of the 2025-2026 school year. Because of this, students and families have experienced some severely late service from time to time. This is not the level of service we strive to provide for our students, schools or our community."

"The Transportation Department is doing a full analysis of the issues and engaging the entire team in problem solving. They have identified some key areas that are being improved to make our service run smoother. Some routes have been completely reimagined to overcome the challenges we have faced. Denver Public Schools is dedicated to fix all routes and return the service to the level that everyone expects and deserves."

"Because of the operational issues we have faced, the Transportation Customer Service line has faced challenges as well. We have assigned additional staff to help answer the incoming calls."

The district said it is reworking routes and adding staff to customer service lines. Parents say they will keep pushing until the system is reliable.

Parents are encouraged to call customer services at 720-423-4600.