By Lauren Northington

At 7:35 a.m. Tuesday, sixth-grader Ayanna Street and her mother, Yakysha Langhorne, stood excitedly outside Westover Hills Elementary School waiting for Ayanna’s scheduled 7:53 a.m. school bus to take her to Binford Middle School.

Like Ayanna, more than 23,000 students started their first day of the 2016-2017 academic year in Richmond Public Schools in a fit of nerves, new outfits and new opportunities.

Mrs. Langhorne had taken the day off from her job in Short Pump to see her daughter off to her first day of middle school and eagerly snapped photos of a beaming Ayanna standing at the bus stop.

As one of thousands of students affected by the Richmond School Board-approved bus transportation plan for the new school year, Ayanna seemed unphased by the loss of her neighborhood bus stop. Despite having to get to a “hub” bus stop at a neighborhood elementary school to catch her bus to Binford, Ayanna seemed more anxious about attending a new school than worrying about where to catch the bus.

But the family’s joy faded to anxiousness and then upset as, an hour after the scheduled pick up time, the bus had not yet arrived.

After calling Binford Middle School, Mrs. Langhorne was advised to find alternate transportation for Ayanna for the morning because her bus was not coming.

“I can’t lose my job waiting at a bus stop, and I cannot take off work just to bring her all the way up to Westover Hills everyday,” Mrs. Langhorne said.

The problems were a mixture of first day kinks and the new transportation plan, which shifts the cost of transportation from the school district to parents.

RPS cut the pupil transportation budget by 3.2 percent even as two-thirds of the city’s students are transported daily on school buses.

On Tuesday, many parents waiting with their middle and high school students at Westover Hills complained about the RPS administration using them to offset costs in transportation.

“I don’t understand why they don’t see the impact of the transportation on parents, as if school administrators aren’t parents or have children in Richmond Public Schools,” Mrs. Langhorne said while several parents nodded and spoke in agreement.

Like many RPS students who live south of the James River, Ayanna will be catching her bus to Binford, located in the Fan District, from Westover Hills Elementary on Forest Hill Avenue.

The new transportation plan, approved by the School Board earlier this year, requires thousands of middle and high school students to walk or find their own transportation to their nearest elementary school to catch the bus to their respective schools. Students attending the city’s eight middle schools, five high schools and three specialty centers are affected.

Although Westover Hills Elementary is a short 5-minute drive from their home, Mrs. Langhorne explained that she fears for her daughter’s safety as the weather changes and traffic on Forest Hill Avenue increases.

“As a parent, I am extremely nervous about her having to walk here to catch the bus, which is why I took off today,” she said.

For the rest of the first week, and hopefully the remainder of the academic year, Mrs. Langhorne plans on having her mother, Ayanna’s grandmother, drop her off and pick her up from the elementary school.

“I am really anxious for her safety, as a female and as a child.”

The new transportation plan was to help ease an $11 million budget gap that has since been closed.

According to Assistant Superintendent Tommy Kranz during a conversation earlier this summer with the Free Press, transportation costs skyrocketed as RPS added routes to transport students outside of their normal school zones, like Ayanna.

In a letter to RPS parents in May, Mr. Kranz highlighted the effect the additions had on pupil transportation.

“Trying to provide this level of service on a citywide basis is extremely expensive and difficult for a system that struggles to hire/retain the adequate number of drivers, acquire the necessary number of buses … and still operate within time and budget parameters,” the letter reads.

Despite the setbacks of the first morning, Mrs. Langhorne encouraged Ayanna to stay excited for the new school year.

“I just need you to continue to stay positive, and continue to be a leader,” she told her daughter.

The first day of school also was marked by students from Broad Rock and Fairfield elementary schools being placed on the wrong buses in the afternoon. The RPS transportation office received several calls from frantic parents looking for their children.

School administrators and bus drivers blamed the mix-up on miscommunication.

Also on Tuesday, administrators at the Richmond Alternative School faced a surprise when more than 80 unexpected students showed up.

According to RPS spokeswoman Kenita Bowers, the unexpected number of students, who nearly doubled the school’s total student population, had not attended orientation and therefore were not accounted for in the staffing and operational budget.

It is unclear whether the students will be able to remain at the school this year.

RPS also appointed eight new principals and 10 new instructional leaders this academic year.