海角大神

Ismael El-Amin was driving his daughter to school when a chance encounter gave him an idea for a new way to carpool.

On the way across Chicago, Mr. El-Amin鈥檚 daughter spotted a classmate riding with her own dad as they drove to their selective public school on the city鈥檚 North Side. For 40 minutes, they rode along the same congested highway.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e waving to each other in the back. I鈥檓 looking at the dad. The dad鈥檚 looking at me. And I was like, parents can definitely be a resource to parents,鈥� said Mr. El-Amin, who went on to found Piggyback Network, a service parents can use to book rides for their children.

Reliance on school buses has been waning for years as districts struggle to find drivers and more students attend schools far outside their neighborhoods. As responsibility for transportation shifts to families, the question of how to replace the traditional yellow bus has become an urgent problem for some, and a spark for innovation.

State and local governments decide how widely to offer school bus service. Lately, more have been cutting back. Only about 28% of U.S. students take a school bus, according to a Federal Highway Administration survey concluded early last year. That鈥檚 down from about 36% in 2017.

Chicago Public Schools, the nation鈥檚 fourth-largest district, has significantly curbed bus service in recent years. It still offers rides for disabled and homeless students, in line with a federal mandate, but most families are on their own. Only 17,000 of the district鈥檚 325,000 students are eligible for school bus rides.

Last week, the school system launched a pilot program allowing some students who attend out-of-neighborhood magnet or selective-enrollment schools to catch a bus at a nearby school鈥檚 鈥渉ub stop.鈥� It aims to start with rides for about 1,000 students by the end of the school year.

It鈥檚 not enough to make up for the lost service, said Erin Rose Schubert, a volunteer for the CPS Parents for Buses advocacy group.

鈥淭he people who had the money and the privilege were able to figure out other situations like rearranging their work schedules or public transportation,鈥� she said. 鈥淧eople who didn鈥檛, some had to pull their kids out of school.鈥�

On Piggyback Network, parents can book a ride for their student online with another parent traveling the same direction. Rides cost roughly 80 cents per mile and the drivers are compensated with credits to use for their own kids鈥� rides.

鈥淚t鈥檚 an opportunity for kids to not be late to school,鈥� 15-year-old Takia Phillips said on a recent PiggyBack ride with Mr. El-Amin as the driver.

The company has arranged a few hundred rides in its first year operating in Chicago, and Mr. El-Amin has been contacting drivers for possible expansion to Virginia, North Carolina, and Texas. It is one of several startups that have been filling the void.

Unlike Piggyback Network, which connects parents, HopSkipDrive contracts directly with school districts to assist students without reliable transportation. The company launched a decade ago in Los Angeles with three mothers trying to coordinate school carpools and now supports some 600 school districts in 13 states.

Regulations keep it from operating in some states, including Kentucky, where a group of Louisville students has been lobbying on its behalf to change that.

After the district halted bus service to most traditional and magnet schools, the student group known as The Real Young Prodigys wrote a hip-hop song titled 鈥淲here My Bus At?鈥� The song鈥檚 music video went viral on YouTube with lyrics such as, 鈥淚鈥檓 a good kid. I stay in class, too. Teachers want me to succeed, but I can鈥檛 get to school.鈥�

鈥淭hose bus driver shortages are not really going away,鈥� HopSkipDrive CEO Joanna McFarland said. 鈥淭his is a structural change in the industry we need to get serious about addressing.鈥�

HopSkipDrive has been a welcome option for Reinya Gibson鈥檚 son, Jerren Samuel, who attends a small high school in Oakland, California. She said the school takes care to accommodate his needs as a student with autism, but the district lined up the transportation because there is no bus from their home in San Leandro.

鈥淕rowing up, people used to talk about kids in the short yellow buses. They were associated with a physical disability, and they were teased or made fun of,鈥� Ms. Gibson said. 鈥淣obody knows this is support for Jerren because he can鈥檛 take public transportation.鈥�

Encouragement from his mother helped Jerren overcome his fear about riding with a stranger to school.

鈥淚 felt really independent getting in that car,鈥� he said.

Companies catering to kids claim to screen drivers more extensively, checking their fingerprints and requiring them to have childcare or parenting experience. Drivers and children are often given passwords that must match, and parents can track a child鈥檚 whereabouts in real time through the apps.

Kango, a competitor to HopSkipDrive in California and Arizona, started as a free carpooling app similar to the PiggyBack Network and now contracts with school districts. Drivers are paid more than they would typically get for Uber or Lyft, but there are often more requirements such as walking some students with disabilities into school, Kango CEO Sara Schaer said.

鈥淭his is not just a curbside-to-curbside, three-minute situation,鈥� Ms. Schaer said. 鈥淵ou are responsible for getting that kid to and from school. That鈥檚 not the same as transporting an adult or DoorDashing somebody鈥檚 lunch or dinner.鈥�

In Chicago, some families that have used Piggyback said they have seen few alternatives.

Concerned about the city鈥檚 rising crime rate, retired police officer Sabrina Beck never considered letting her son take the subway to Whitney Young High School. Since she was driving him anyway, she volunteered through PiggyBack also to drive a freshman who had qualified for the selective magnet school but had no way to get there.

鈥淭o have the opportunity to go and then to miss it because you don鈥檛 have the transportation, that is so detrimental,鈥� Ms. Beck said. 鈥淥ptions like this are extremely important.鈥�

After the bus route that took her two kids to elementary school was canceled, Jazmine Dillard and other Chicago parents thought they had convinced the school to move up the opening bell from 8:45 a.m. to 8:15 a.m., a more manageable time for her schedule. After that plan was scrapped because the buses were needed elsewhere at that time, Ms. Dillard turned to PiggyBack Network.

鈥淲e had to kind of pivot and find a way to make it to work on time as well as get them to school on time,鈥� she said.

This story was reported by The Associated Press.