You may have noticed recently receiving a new type of notification telling you "There will be changes to the bus service schedule on 1/20/2025 due to XXX" and a new label of "Calendar Exception" on the Here Comes the Bus (HCTB) map. If you have, and are wondering what a calendar exception is, this article is for you.

A calendar exception is a change in the normally scheduled school bus routes that indicates the buses will be operating at a different time than expected — for example, a morning delay pushing the AM pickup at your student's bus stop back two hours or an early dismissal bringing them home 90 minutes before the usual hour. Also, a calendar exception could be a bus route cancellation for the whole day, such as if your school district calls off all classes due to a snowstorm.

The HCTB app is set by default to notify you by both push notification and email on the day a calendar exception will affect your student's bus stop times. The notice will include the date of the bus route modification, the three times of day for bus operation (AM, MID, and PM), and how each part of the day will be changed. It will look similar to this:

If you already had the HCTB app open, you will see a notification like the following:

You can tap See in this notification (or just open the HCTB app and then the map screen) to see how the calendar exception will appear on the map.

You can tap  at the top right to see the exception on the History screen.

If the calendar exception is for the whole day, meaning that the bus won't run at all that day (such as if school is closed for a snow day), the History screen will show Canceled.