Transportation FAQ's

Your child’s information is automatically sent to the Transportation Department when you enroll at your school. If the student is eligible for bus service (see above), they will automatically be assigned a bus route.

Please see the Bus Routes page to locate your student’s bus stop, route, and time information.

You will receive an email in late August with your student's routing information. Also included will be instructions for accessing E-Link to find bus stop location, pickup and drop off times. If routing changes are made during the school year, email notification will be sent out prior to the change and the school will be notified in advance of any changes. 

You can also check your assigned bus route, bus stop, and stop time on the Bus Routes page. 

School bus stops are placed in centralized locations.  Each student’s home address is evaluated and the closest bus stop is assigned based upon walking distance criteria established by School Board Administrative Regulations.

The guideline walk distance for elementary students is 3 blocks; middle school students is 4 blocks; high school students is 5 blocks. A block is 1/10th of a mile or 528 feet

No.  District policy dictates students use their assigned bus stop only.

You may submit a Transportation Service Request. If approved, it may take up to five days for the change to be completed. This allows time to notify all parents/guardians of any change to a student stop.   

Learn more about Transportation Service Requests.

Students should be at their designated stop and ready to board 5 minutes prior to the scheduled stop time.  Traffic and other circumstances can cause the bus to be early or late on any given day.  Transportation uses the atomic clock for all routes.

Not necessarily. Due to the smaller number of students, after-school routes are more generic in nature and are generated to serve a larger area of the District. For this reason, a student’s regular route stop may be closer to their home than the corresponding after-school route stop. 

Escorting your child to/from the bus stop is not required however, it is highly recommended for kindergarten and first grade students, especially at the beginning of the school year.  It is also highly recommended for any student who may have difficulty navigating their way to/from the bus stop

Yes, provided the day care is within your school’s attendance area. This would be your student's designated stop every day.

Please contact your child's school to request daycare transportation. Note that bus changes may take up to five business days to process. 

Early release routes are identical to regular-day, (K-12), adjusted for time.

You may contact the Transportation Center at (503) 356-4200.

If you require translation services please call your child's school or the Multilingual Department at (503) 356-3755. 

Generally no.  Exceptions may be made on a case by case basis.  Permission must be arranged in advance and approved by the School Principal and Transportation Administration. 

While the District has no policy regarding maximum ride times, regular education routes serving a school's attendance area are designed to operate with travel times of 45 minutes or less. Routes serving after school programs, K-8 schools, special education programs, and options schools may exceed this travel time due to the extended geographic area involved. 

The National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Department of Transportation and other authorities agree that school buses are the safest form of transportation for getting children to and from school. According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, a child is 8 times safer in a school bus than when riding in a parent's vehicle. Some 475,000 school buses carry 25 million children each day, rarely with any serious accident.

Safety features of school bus include:

• The color and size of school buses make them easily visible and identifiable
• The height of school buses provides good driver visibility and raises the passenger compartment above car impact height
• School bus construction includes reinforced sides to protect passengers from side impacts
• School bus lights provide distinctive warning to alert other motorists to the presence of a school bus stop
• School buses are carefully designed using what is called "passive restraint", meaning all a child must do to be protected is sit down in a seat

One of the greatest safety features of the school bus is the driver. They receive specialized training in student behavior management, loading and unloading, security and emergency medical procedures.

Drivers participate in pre-employment and random drug/alcohol testing, as well as frequent driving record checks, and submit to background checks and periodic medical exams to keep their Commercial Driver's License (CDL) with a School Bus Endorsement.

Beaverton School District drivers are required to attend an average of 8 hours of classroom in-service training each year. Most BSD drivers attend many more hours than is required. 

Students enrolled in a K-8 option school (Springville, Raleigh Hills, and Aloha Huber Park) or a SUMMA program will receive transportation services between an assigned neighborhood bus stop and their school. unless they reside in that schools non-transportation zone. Students who reside in the non-transportation zone for their school will not receive transportation services. 
 
Students enrolled in Merlo Station Community High School, Arts and Communication Magnet Academy (ACMA), International School of Beaverton (ISB), Rachael Carson School of Environmental Science, and Beaverton Academy of Science and Engineering (BASE) will receive transportation services as follows:

• In the morning, students will be picked up at a neighborhood stop and shuttled to the closest central school (either ACMA, ISB, or BASE). Students not attending the central school will then be transported to their school.
• In the afternoon, students will be transported from their option school to the high school closest to their residence. Students will then either walk home, if they live within the high school's non-transportation zone, or ride a bus from the high school to their neighborhood bus stop. 

Each BSD bus has the route number displayed next to the front door on the passenger side and under the driver’s window on the driver’s side with white numbers on a black background. 

Your student's routing information includes the bus route number. To access this information please see the Bus Routes page. 

Students who board the wrong bus should notify the bus driver as soon as possible.  The school will be notified, and the bus driver will return the student to school.

Some elementary and middle school afterschool programs offer transportation services.  Check with your school to see if services are available.  There are no after-school bus services available for high schools.

Students whose transportation needs are addressed through an IEP (Individualized Education Program), are eligible for “curbside” service. This service is typically reserved for situations where a less restrictive environment is not possible, or where medical issues require this type of service.

For other students living in non-rural areas, stops are placed at centralized locations that can be safely accessed by a significant number of students to minimize the time length and mileage of the run. If you have concerns about your child’s safety you are encouraged to accompany your child to the bus stop or arrange a neighborhood buddy to walk with your child. 

Transportation for Special Needs students is generated through the Special Education Department.  The student’s IEP team will determine if transportation is a related service as part of the student’s overall needs assessment.  The Transportation Department will receive notification from the Special Education Department and will contact families via letter and/or phone calls with the bus stop location, pick up, and drop off times

Bus service is not available during the day to transport sick students home.  Families must make their own arrangements to pick up students who become ill during the school day and need to go home.

School buses have to endure the same traffic conditions that plague commuters. A traffic snarl, traffic accident or a longer than scheduled loading at a previous bus stop can easily throw your bus 10-15 minutes off schedule.

Please be patient and allow at least 15 minutes before calling Dispatch at 503-356-4200.

The Beaverton School District student must have a written note signed by the parent/guardian and school secretary/administrator.  The note should be given to the driver, and the student may only ride if there is space on the bus and no additional stops would be required.  A note must be provided for each occurrence. 

Oregon Revised Statues do not permit insects, reptiles, or animals of any type except for approved guide or assistance animals. 

Seat assignments are a positive way for the ride to be consistent and safe. This aids the driver and school staff with student management. Drivers have the authority to assign seats as they deem necessary. 

Federal and State Transportation regulations only permit the students to depart the bus at their designated stop or at school.  Only a district staff member may remove a student from the bus at school.  This is for the safety and security of all students. 

Musical instruments in a case may be transported provided there is space on the bus and the instrument can be secured by the student

Glass or any object that could potentially injure students cannot be transported on the bus. Large items that cannot be safely stored on the students lap may not be transported on the bus. These objects can become very hazardous in the event of a collision. 

All buses are equipped with a two-way radio. The dispatch office is in communication with buses at all times and radio transmissions are monitored by the district’s Transportation staff.  

The district uses video surveillance systems inside buses to help monitor student activity and provide students with the safest possible ride. Video systems allow the driver to spend more time concentrating on the road and what is going on around them instead of constantly looking in the rear view mirror to see what is occurring inside the bus.

All BSD buses are equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) technology.  GPS helps ensure all students are safe and on route and provides “real time” locations of all buses.

Here Comes The Bus, a free mobile phone application, is available for use to track your student’s bus. See the Here Comes The Bus page for more information 

During hazardous winter weather conditions, Beaverton School District administrators drive roads to evaluate conditions in relation to bus safety and communicate with weather forecasting professionals.  School closure or delayed-start decisions are typically be made and posted on the District website by 5:15 am. Families will also be notified by phone and/or text message through the ParentSquare system.  

We encourage and support families to make attendance decisions for your child(ren) based on your own assessment of travel conditions at your location.

Please see the Inclement Weather page for further information. 

Some routes and stops may be eliminated when snow routes are used.  On inclement weather days, the District will provide information on any time delays and whether or not we are operating snow routes.

Please see the Inclement Weather page for further information. 

Seat belts are not required in school buses because research by the state Department of Transportation and others determined that compartmentalization was a better solution. Some of the key arguments favoring compartmentalization over seat belts are: 

1. Compartmentalization is more manageable. The protective surfaces exist in place without depending on any action by the children or any extra special supervision by the drivers. Seat belts require discipline and supervision to keep them clean, unraveled and in use. 
2. Compartmentalization works equally well for 1, 2 or 3 students per seat. Today's 39" wide standard seats may contain three small children or two large ones, or any combination in between. Arranging seat belts to properly handle any combination is difficult, if not impossible. The best known solution with seat belts is to restrict each seat to two students and two belts, which has the disadvantage of sharply reducing the carrying capacity of bus fleets. 
3. Compartmentalization works whether students have fully developed abdominal areas or not. Conventional seat belts, which are lap restraints only, are not suitable for small children whose abdominal area and bone structure are not adequately developed to take the force of a lap belt alone. They need the help of chest harnesses also, which adds to the complexity of a proper seat belt solution. 
4. Compartmentalization, once it has done its energy-absorbing job, leaves the student free to escape the bus. Seat belts could leave students strapped in, upside down, perhaps unconscious, in burning or flooding buses. 

Yes, emergency drills are an important part of providing save student transportation and are conducted twice per year at all of our schools.

Call Dispatch at (503) 356-4200 as soon as you know an item has been left behind. The dispatcher will attempt to contact the driver to locate the item. In most cases, your student will be able to retrieve the item the next time they ride the bus. Items of high monetary value are turned into Dispatch for safekeeping. 

Transportation may be available depending on several factors, including whether it's located in your child's school boundary and non-transportation zone. 

It's critical that you notify your child's school of all address changes immediately to avoid extended delays in bus routing changes.  If your student is eligible for transportation, new stop information will be provided within five school days once the school updates your address.

If your move has placed you in the school's non-transportation zone, your student will no longer be eligible for bus service.