UPDATE 1:45 p.m. Bus routes are up at www.framingham.k12.ma.us

***

All week, I have been getting calls and emails from parents asking why the bus routes have not been published on the school website and why the delay - school starts Wednesday.

I called the transportation office on Monday and was told they would be up later this week. I called again yesterday (as a parent) and was told they would be up on Friday night as there was a "technology issue".

After getting that answer, I called Framingham Public Schools Business Manager Ed Gotgart who send Patch this response today:

"The bus routes should be on the website today, hopefully by mid-day.  There was no technology glitch.  The routes are developed in Edulog software by the Transportation Office, then have to be individually loaded on to the website because there is personal, identifying data in Edulog that must be purged before it can be posted on the website. 

That process is not only time consuming, but extraordinarily detailed since every stop has to be reviewed and purged of identifying names. 

The Transportation Office receives literally hundreds of new students at this time of the year through new registrations, so they must match every student with a bus stop to make sure that we have enough space on the bus and that the stop is appropriate given the student’s residence. 

Obviously, we want the routes and stops to be as accurate as possible, so we are always pressed to hold off finalizing the routes and stops until we have all the known students in the data base, and that data base changes right up until the first day of school. 

So, while we would like to be able to publish the routes and stops earlier, we find we have to wait as long as we can to insure as much accuracy as we can.

 Hope this helps explain why we are always up against the start of school timeline when it comes to bussing."

The routes will be published either here - http://framingham.k12.ma.us/ or at
http://framingham.k12.ma.us/transportation.cfm