It was high holy chaos hours before Shabbos, as school bus companies scrambled to retrieve students at scores of yeshivas whose traditional early Friday dismissals were botched by the city’s school-bus bosses.

“The schedule was completely not the way it should be, you can’t believe it,” said Yehuda Tunkel, executive director of the Yeshiva of Brooklyn. “Early dismissal was turned into late dismissal.”

Rabbis and yeshiva directors across the city said they were flooded with phone calls from parents worried that their children would be waiting for hours to be picked up, or that they wouldn’t be home before Shabbos.

Most yeshivas in the winter months dismiss students between 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. The Department of Education-contracted buses serve 122 yeshivas around the city.

In the end, pickups were close to being on time, but not before bus companies reverted to their previous schedules and yeshivas contacted the firms to confirm buses were on their way.

At Yeshiva Ketana Shaarei Torah in Coney Island, the situation grew so desperate that school officials summoned parents to pick up their kids rather than gamble on having buses not show up on time.

The city Department of Education contends that verifying early dismissals at yeshivas and other schools, and making appropriate arrangements, has always been the responsibility of contracted bus companies and remains so under the route changes.

But officials from bus companies insist that the duty of telling drivers where and when to pick up kids now rests with the department.

(NY Post)