BOSTON (WHDH) - Boston City Councilors hosting a hearing Thursday night to address concerns regarding Boston Public Schools transportation issues, which some councilors say have been causing headaches for parents and school administrators for too long.

Among the councilors sounding off at the hearing was Julia Mejia, who asked, “What are the adjustments we need to make?” to ensure the public school system’s buses operate as they should and students aren’t being left at the corner.

Many of the parents on hand at the hearing said the transportation issues have impacted their families.

Among them was Shamieh Wall, a parent of a child with special needs, who says her student requires a bus monitor but there often isn’t one on the bus when it arrives.

“Her first morning driver was so frustrated with the lack of communication, and I’m guessing parents were giving her a hard time, and not having a monitor, that should told me she was going to quit on Friday. The first two weeks of school,” she said.

The district says it has struggled to hire and retain bus drivers and monitors, which has led to buses being late or not coming at all. As part of an effort to address the issue, Boston Public Schools says it’s working to recruit drivers and monitors for the nearly 22,000 students who rely on bus services every day. Of those, 6,000 require specialized transportation — more than 2,100 need bus monitors.

BPS says there are 885 bus drivers but 211 of them are on leave or inactive. A lack of drivers has the district taking note of the number of daily bus trips that aren’t covered.

“Fixing that metric looks like hiring a lot more drivers, so what we’ve been doing on that is offering increased compensation, increased hiring bonuses,” said BPS Assistant Director of Contract Operations and Fleets.

Varsha Ramsumair, the assistant director of the district’s Monitor’s Unit, said, “About 35 percent of our trips are uncovered on a daily basis. and we understand that until these students have the services they need, deserve, and are entitled to, our work is not done.”

While it works to hire more employees, the district says it’s looking to give out rideshare vouchers to families.

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