One might have thought there was no oxygen in the room given the breathless accounts of stellar performance regarding student transportation during the opening days of Wake County schools.

At a Wake County Board of Education meeting Tuesday night, Schools Superintendent Jim Merrill was delighted to report that more than 152,000 students were shuttled to 170 schools with nary a hitch.

Of course, there was a lot riding on a glowing report for Merrill, who owes his job to the Democrat-dominated board giving the boot to his predecessor, Tony Tata, in large part due to complaints about school bus woes last year that included late pickups and deliveries, missed routes, confusion, and parent complaints.

Tata’s supporters labeled it a political decision, and noted he had been working diligently to fix the temporary glitches in the transportation department.

Merrill proclaimed Tuesday that the transportation system was “significantly improved” this year, and only a handful of complaints were made. Some board members made it a point during their open comments period to repeat how well the bus system worked this year.

But at that point in the praise parade the sunshine dimmed.

Parent Christopher Moody of Raleigh, the first person to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting, proceeded to the podium and told of his torturous experience waiting for his 9-year-old daughter to arrive home on the school bus and not showing up on time.

Moody said his daughter’s school is dismissed at 3:45. By 4:45 his daughter had not arrived at her bus stop. He called the school system, got a voice mail, and was prompted through a variety of choices. He selected the one for transportation, child emergency issues. He left a voice mail, then continued his anxious vigil.

His daughter did not arrive at the bus stop until 5:50 p.m., more than two hours after school let out, Moody said. Equally disturbing to him, Moody said, is that as of last night’s meeting, nobody from the school district ever returned his urgent voice mail message left on a line for child emergencies.

In another matter, a contentious code of ethics policy that passed on first reading by a 5-3 vote last month was scheduled for final approval Tuesday but was pulled from the action agenda by Board Chairman Keith Sutton. The item was returned to the board’s policy committee for further review.