BONSALL -- Standing inside a new cafeteria at Bonsall Elementary School on Wednesday, Justin Cunningham surveyed the hundreds of children eating lunch inside and nodded.

"There's the future of the community," said the new superintendent of schools.

Since July 1, Cunningham has been in charge of the Bonsall Union School District and its four campuses, where about 1,900 children from Bonsall and Pala attend classes.

He said Wednesday that he has been trying to figure out solutions to problems such as the unpopular school board decision earlier this year to cancel all school bus transportation within the sprawling, 88-square-mile district. Previously, about 700 students used the school buses.

During the first week of school, which began Monday, that debate took on new life as local roads were choked each morning and afternoon with parents trying to get their kids to class.

"The issue of transportation being eliminated was something I had to deal with right away," said Cunningham, who said his first two months as head of the district have brought "a lot of challenges."

He said another sort of crisis arose when enrollment surged in the last few weeks before school, prompting him to hire new teachers at the last minute.

Mass layoffs by budget-crunched districts earlier this year throughout the state created "a buyer's market" for schools looking for new teachers, he said, adding that he received 200 applications for one of those last-minute teaching positions.

Preparing for the school year also brought positive experiences, he said.

"I'm enjoying it very, very much," said Cunningham. "It's a wonderful group of people to work with, and a wonderful community."

Many in the community seem to return the admiration.

"He is really something -- something and a half," said school board member Dick Olson.

Among other ideas Cunningham has for improving the district, Olson said, "He has a real plan for doing some great things for Vivian Banks, raising the test scores and doing it the right way -- pulling these kids rather than pushing them. We're really lucky to have him."

Vivian Banks is the district's charter school at the Pala Indian reservation, and has historically struggled the most to meet government benchmarks on standardized tests.

Transportation: a demanding issue

While there are plenty of other things going on within the boundaries of the Bonsall school district, everyone seems to be talking about one issue in particular: transportation.

One parent, Michael Laborde, said that he had to alter his work schedule in order to make sure he could pick up his twin boys in kindergarten and a daughter in second grade at Bonsall Elementary School every afternoon.

Because kindergartners and second-graders are released at different times, that means three daily trips from the family's home near Interstate 15 to the elementary school.

"It'll take us 30 to 45 minutes to get in, pick (the younger kids) up and drive home, and same with my daughter in the afternoon -- it takes us about an hour to pick her up," said Laborde. "Tomorrow, everybody's released at 1:30. So that's going to be complete chaos, I'm assuming."

The district has already called two buses back into service, to sweep through the outer reaches of the district and serve the families that would be most hard-pressed to make several long round-trips a day.

Cunningham said he wants to add two more routes that would serve some of the large neighborhoods within the district, such as Lake Rancho Viejo near Interstate 15 and Highway 76.

Laborde, who lives at Lake Rancho Viejo, said that would make his life a lot easier, saying "You have little kids, and you want to make sure they're getting to and from school safely."

Still, reinstated bus routes may not last long, depending on how state officials choose to fund home-to-school transportation, said Cunningham.

"To some degree, this is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, because we've got an aging bus fleet," and a new school bus costs upwards of $100,000, he said.

Traffic has been hectic at all four campuses this week, but it has been particularly bad at Bonsall Elementary School because $25 million worth of construction is still under way at the 850-student main campus, Cunningham said.

Crews are still working on a drop-off lane that will help ease the flow of traffic at the campus, but until then traffic is likely to be snarled for a portion of each day, said Cunningham.

"We're tuning things up so it'll be better," he said. "We do need to see what we can do to get more cars off the road and save our parents gas money."

Contact staff writer Tom Pfingsten at (760) 740-3516 or tpfingsten@nctimes.com.