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NYC school field trips frequently become fiascos because buses don’t show, parents say
By
Jessica Gould
Published May 30, 2025
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Christopher Werth
By
Jessica Gould
Published May 30, 2025
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It's field trip season for New York City public school students – if the buses show up.
Parents, educators and students said they’ve noticed a frustrating trend: School buses scheduled to take kids to zoos, museums or Broadway shows never come, or run so late that trips are canceled.
Education department data on the number of missed field trips systemwide showed only a small number of field trips are delayed. In a statement to Gothamist, education department spokesperson Jenna Lyle said students have enjoyed 70,000 successful trips this year, while less than 1% of field trips – or fewer than 700 – reported problems either due to breakdowns or just “running late.” The education department said the data is based on self-reported tallies from the bus companies.
But parents and educators who spoke to Gothamist reacted to those figures with skepticism, saying long-standing problems with the city's byzantine bus system were also to blame.
Jennifer Patton, a Queens parent, said she’s had firsthand experience with missed field trips while working at prominent New York City museums for 20 years. Patton, who asked that her current employer not be identified because she wasn’t authorized to talk to the press, said she’s noticed more field trip problems lately.
Museum staff often have to shorten lessons to accommodate late buses, and a few trips have gotten canceled altogether, she said. She said bus problems on field trips have been a perennial issue, but seem a bit worse this year.
“I would say 30%-40% of field trips are late, and then a few times a year they just don’t come,” Patton said. Her daughter’s elementary school, P.S. 112 in Astoria, Queens, sometimes opts for teaching artists to visit the school instead of field trips, because of the unpredictability of buses and traffic, Patton added.
She was far from the only one familiar with the problems facing New York City students hoping to go on field trips. More than a dozen parents and educators shared stories with Gothamist about students missing highly anticipated trips to the Bronx Zoo, baseball games and elsewhere because the bus didn’t show, or described kids having to pile into fewer buses on the way home because one doesn’t show up. One parent in Brooklyn said her child's classmate brought in a bus pinata on the last day of school last year for everyone to take their frustrations out on. Education insiders saw the recurring inconveniences as another example of the city’s notoriously complex and dysfunctional school bus system.
“It’s a student transportation crisis,” said Matthew Burton, a parent at Brooklyn New School. His daughter’s class also experienced field trip bus problems – twice – recently. “The bus reliability for field trips is one small facet of the problem. The problem is the buses in general.”
The city contracts with more than 40 private companies that crisscross the city and that many parents have long complained are not accountable enough for their service.
New York City's school bus system has long had a reputation for inefficiency and mismanagement.
Getty Images
Gothamist contacted several of the biggest bus companies for comment but did not receive a response. A spokesperson for some of those companies referred Gothamist back to the education department for comment.
Kyle Brillante, principal of the Highbridge Green School in the Bronx, called missed field trips “incredibly common.”
“It’s crazy how awful it is,” he said.
On Thursday, sixth graders at M.S. 51 in Brooklyn were scheduled to go to a Staten Island FerryHawks game, but only two of nine buses showed up, according to an email from school administrators shared with Gothamist.
“As a result, while a few classes were able to attend as scheduled, the majority of our students were unable to go,” Assistant Principal Robert Pukhkiy wrote to parents.
“We know how disappointing this is, and we share in your frustration. This situation was completely out of our control, and we are truly saddened it happened.”
Pukhkiy said the PTA had ordered pizza for the kids stuck at school, and was working on a replacement trip.
M.S. 51 parent Tara Nussbaum said her daughter reported watching “food vids” in homeroom for much of the day.
“We shouldn’t have bus contracts between the [Department of Education] and these bus companies that don’t show up,” Nussbaum said.
Sixth grader Gretchen Greene was among the students who missed out on the baseball game. She said students waited hours in the auditorium before they were sent back to the classroom to work on computers “doing literally nothing productive for the rest of the day.”
“We were all really upset. Because we were promised a trip, and because of the bus company, that promise was not fulfilled,” she said.
New York City’s school bus system is notoriously complex and troubled, particularly for the students with disabilities who rely on it to get to and from school everyday and often face lengthy delays.
Burton, the parent at Brooklyn New School, had planned to chaperone his third grade daughter’s class trip to the Bronx Zoo.
He said the class waited 45 minutes for the bus, then took kids to a playground for the day instead.
“No one was crying,” he said. “But everyone was like, ‘Come on! I want to go to the zoo! Where's the bus?’”
The teachers rescheduled the trip for a couple weeks later. The bus didn’t show up again.
“The exact same thing happened,” Burton said.
Parents considered turning it into a lesson in civic engagement by having the kids write to city officials calling for improvements to bus service. But they decided to go to another playground instead.
“To ensure we are continuing to hold our vendors accountable, we have implemented a corrective action plan for one bus company servicing schools in Brooklyn with a higher number of failures to perform assigned trips,” said Lyle, the education department spokesperson. She did not say which company.
Gothamist heard from many parents in Brooklyn whose kids had problems with buses for field trips.
One parent said her child’s class waited two hours for a bus from their Brooklyn elementary school to the Queens County Farm Museum this spring before giving up. Another parent said a school bus took her child’s class to the Transit Museum but didn’t pick them up, so teachers and parents scrambled to take kids back by subway.
Schools can schedule buses for field trips for no extra cost through the Office of Pupil Transportation, as long as they do so in advance. Drivers don’t receive extra pay for field trips because they happen during drivers’ work days, in between their morning and afternoon routes. Some parents wondered whether drivers simply skipped field trips they don’t want to do, or that could complicate their daily afternoon runs.
Rima Izquierdo, a member of Parents To Improve School Bus Transit, said she sympathizes with drivers who have to squeeze in extra runs and risk being late or getting into accidents. “The conditions that they already work in are less than ideal,” she said. She suggested they get paid extra for field trips.
Carolyn Rinaldi, a spokesperson for the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents school bus drivers, said it’s wrong to think drivers are simply shirking their responsibilities.
“They can’t refuse work. I’m not saying it never happens. But that’s not typical,” she said. She attributed problems to a combination of long distances, such as from Brooklyn to the Bronx Zoo or Queens Farm, insufficient turnaround time, and an ongoing driver shortage.
“I just learned over time you have to prepare,” said Brillante, the principal of the Highbridge Green School in the Bronx.
In addition to always reserving an extra bus with the school system – just in case one doesn’t show up – he uses his discretionary budget to contract directly with yellow bus companies for an additional bus.
“You have to have a backup for your backup,” he said.
Tagged
education
new york city
Jessica Gould
Jessica is the education reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jessica reported on the shutdown and reopening of the nation’s largest school system, highlighting the unprecedented impacts on learning, health and mental health for students, staff and families. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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