The superintendent of Maryland’s Howard County Public Schools is apologizing after 20 school bus routes were canceled, which led to a tough start to the new school year for over 2,400 students.
The school system first apologized Monday, saying one of the county’s independent contractors, Zum Transportation, announced it did not have enough drivers to cover the 20 routes for the remainder of this week — the first week of the new school year.
Howard County Public Schools Superintendent Michael Martirano then held a news conference Wednesday to address the “transportation crisis” and later released a statement.
“I apologize for the transportation challenges you have experienced,” Martirano said. “It is not lost on me that as we start the year talking about the importance of attendance, that Howard County failed as a school system to provide on-time, reliable transportation to many of our students.”
While shouldering some of the blame and promising the community he’s ready to solve the problem, which he characterized as a “system failure,” Martirano said he and his team are “laser-focused to make sure we get this right.”
Despite the transportation issues, Monday’s school systemwide attendance rate was 95% and Tuesday’s was 96%. Martirano said that’s better than last year’s annual average of 93.5% and “a testament to our parents and students who have not let the transportation challenges get in the way of starting this school year.”
Regarding the county’s ongoing school bus driver shortage, which Martirano said it’s a problem “many superintendents in Maryland and in America are struggling with.”
He said Zum Transportation indicated it has “many candidates in the pipeline who are going through training to obtain their commercial driver’s license or CDL.”
He said the contractor is offering “an additional $500 a week bonus for drivers who go a month without an absence as well as an $8,000 incentive once a trainee completes their CDL certification.”
In a blog post, Zum apologized for the disruptions.
“We know that disruptions to transportation this week have been an enormous stress on parents and children,” the blog post stated. “For that, we would like to apologize to everyone impacted.”
The company said it was forced to cancel 20 routes on Monday because several drivers did not show up to work.
Other routes have seen delays because, over the course of the day, buses “have been falling behind” as drivers aim to keep up with three different school schedules — for elementary, middle and high schools.
Zum said it is working with school officials to fix the problems.
