No, you have the same bus make the trip twice. If you want to be efficient, have parents request which of the two times they want their kids picked up at so you only need to do part of each loop.

But they don't do that now, and it would take funding. Where is that coming from?

I mean, look, I'm generally politically liberal and I think all these services deserve more resources than they get, but unless it's attached to the DST bill I have zero confidence it would happen in most communities.

Imagine you have a bus coming every day at 7am. Now you move school's start time back 2 hours. You change the schedule so now the bus comes at 9am. What's the bus doing at 7am? Now that bus is sitting around not doing anything at 7am. Adding the second loop means you need to pay the bus driver for 2 extra hours and you need gas for another loop, but these costs are very small compared to what you are already paying to own and operate the bus and employ the bus driver. Assuming a 30 mile route with 80 students at 6 mpg, you're looking at less than 25 cents per student per day, about a 4.5% increase over the current average expenditure per student transported. This can be further reduced if you know which students will be riding in each time slot so you can take two shorter routes.

Do normal city busses not run regularly as well? Or just ride your bike?

It appears you live in the UK, where a majority of people live in cities and towns where public transportation is a viable way for most people to travel most places in their local area.

This is not the case in most of the US. In some places it's because public transportation is not prioritized for funding, but in many it's a matter of low population density making it less practical.

Not everyone lives in cities, or in cities where it's safe for (all) 13-year-olds to ride a public bus in the dark, much less bike.

Are public busses haunted or something? Why are they unsafe when it’s dark? How do you think other countries get children to school? They walk, take a normal bus, ride a bike. They manage a-ok.