Questions arise about lack of social distancing on LCPS school buses

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico- Las Cruces Public Schools is in its second week of in-person learning, and while students are spreading out to social distance inside schools, an ABC-7 viewer says some who ride school buses are not. 

The concerned viewer said that it is "hypocritical to pack kids in school buses only to space them out when they get to school."

A spokesperson for STS, the company hired by LCPS to transport kids to school, told us they're following protocols to keep students safe. The company also contends that the population of students riding the bus is down.

“We don’t have nearly the number of kids riding that rode in the past. But there are more than one kid per seat in some of those buses," said BJ Garcia, the division manager for STS.

When pressed about the overcrowding a viewer saw on the bus, Garcia said: "We do have buses that have a quite few number of students on them. We [also] have buses that probably don't have that many at all. We’ll address those if we have folks say there are too many kids on there. We’ll look at that and we’ll do that in conjunction with the district.”

However, the bus company says it is enforcing a mask requirement and collects contact tracing information.