WEST SPRINGFIELD – Four of Kady Musial children ride West Springfield School District’s bus number 2, at different times of the day. While the bus is always fairly full, the run for the middle school that her son, Jordan Musial, takes is the one that scares her.

"There are too many kids in this neighborhood for one bus,” Kady said. There are so many passengers, Kady said, that people are sitting on the floor.

“This morning I had to sit on the floor with two other kids,” Jordan said of the 10 to 15-minute ride to West Springfield Middle School.

“If the bus crashes, those kids on the floor are dead,” Kady said.

While the capacity of the Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative buses that the school district uses is 71 passengers, that only provides 13 inches of seat space for each student – sufficient for elementary school children, but middle and high school students are physically larger.

While Assistant Superintendent Kevin McQuillan stated at the Sept. 10 School Committee meeting no more than 51 middle schoolers were assigned to each bus, Jordan, a sixth-grader, estimates there are “60ish” kids that ride the bus to school each morning.

 School officials acknowledge that on one day during the first week of September, bus number 2 had an excessive number of students on board in the afternoon. McQuillan explained to the school committee that the overflow was due to an unexpected number of students taking the bus to the Boys and Girls Club and that the problem had been solved.

Kady said the problem is not with the afternoon bus, but the ride to school in the mornings.

“I try to drive him as much as possible but I have to work,” Kady said. She is not the only parent with concerns.

Carey Weisner’s daughter, Lexi Hernandez, is also on bus number 2. Weisner found out about the overcrowding because her daughter told her she had to leave half an hour early so that she could walk to an earlier bus stop to be sure to get a seat. Hernandez recently had leg surgery and was concerned she would get hurt sitting on the floor.

Weisner’s primary concern is the safety of the passengers if there is an accident or a fire. It worries Hernandez, too. Weisner said her eighth-grader told her she was worried that if there were a car accident kids would go through the windshield.

“We shouldn't have to go to work 20 minutes late so we can drive our kids, so they don't have to sit on the floor,” Weisner said.

At the beginning of the year, the passengers that had been riding bus number 16 were added to bus number 2 so the other bus could be used to transport students at the Hampden Charter School of Science’s West Springfield campus.

“As soon as they combined the buses it was, like, a huge overflow,” Hernandez said. She said that fewer people are riding than bus than there were at the beginning of September, but there are still two or three kids that have to sit on the floor.

“I think there are too many kids getting on the bus at the Boys & Girls Club that have to get to the middle school,” said Weisner. The organization offers a before school program for West Springfield Middle School students, though it does not provide transportation to the school.

“I think there's a lack of communication between the Boys & Girls Club and the school,” Weisner said. She added that the solution may be to add another bus to the morning run.

Despite the uproar from parents on social media regarding the issue, the school department said bus overcrowding is not a problem.

Superintendent Michael Richard sent out an automated message to parents on Sept. 26. In it, he said that impressions of overcrowding are not unusual at the beginning of the year and that the “ebb and flow” of students finding the right bus and stop are normal.

“We’re not aware of a problem on bus number 2,” said McQuillan. He said that there had been two complaints over a span of eight days and that both were “unfounded.”

 McQuillan cited a video that was shared on social media showing a student sitting on the floor. He said the security footage from that incident shows the driver pulling over until the student is seated back in a seat. Jordan’s experience, however, disputes that.

“If you’re standing in the aisle [the driver will] stop the bus but if you sit on the floor, he’ll go,” Jordan said.

The school department believes than any issue with overcrowding lies in students taking the wrong buses.

“We have a continuing problem with students who will not take their assigned buses, but there is no systemic problem with overcrowding,” McQuillan said. Richard echoed that students are responsible for taking their assigned bus.

“It is imperative that students and their families know the importance of riding the correct bus. We rely on students getting on the bus at the correct stop and taking the correct bus home,” Richard said in the robocall.

Kady said it feels like the school district, specifically McQuillan, is blaming the parents for allowing their children on buses they are not assigned to, but she said that the students at the bus stop are the same ones that always take that bus.

“If they have any issues they can call the school department,” McQuillan said. Parents can call (413) 263-3298 or visit schoolbus@wsps.org with any bus complaints or concerns.