KYLE, Texas (KXAN) — Complaints and concerns of overcrowded buses and students waiting more than an hour for their ride have led to Hays Consolidated Independent School District looking at major changes. 

The district issued an apology letter to parents on Wednesday stating, “This is not the fault of our drivers, students, parents, or campus staff. It is a problem with our planning.” 

The district says the method it used to calculate the number of eligible bus riders who would actually ride the buses proved incorrect.

“What we do every year is we take the number of eligible students and then we work a formula based on that and do a prediction of how many of those eligible students will actually ride the bus and that’s how they plan the routes,” said Hays CISD spokesperson Tim Savoy. 

The district confirms there were students having to sit on the floor of the bus and others sitting three to a seat. 

“This stops today,” reads the statement. “We have added additional buses on those routes to accommodate the needed additional seats. The safety of your children is paramount.” 

This school year the district says it also eliminated 17 bus routes from last year in hopes of reducing the chance of experiencing a driver shortage like it saw during parts of last school year.

“Our delays and our problems, we were quickly able to realize that we’re not just talking about normal situations, there was something deeper going on here,” said Savoy. “We need to fix the problems and we are doing that now.”

The district says it is now working to add back some of the routes that were eliminated and it will be communicating any changes to parents as soon as they are made.