On the first day of school in Prince George’s County, Maryland, transportation officials got more than 19,000 calls.
The school system’s transportation director, Rudolph Saunders, said some were requests for different pickup times or locations. Others were complaints about buses that were running behind schedule. Many were from parents who just wanted to double check they had the right location and pickup times for their children’s bus stop.
“The first week is always tricky,” Saunders said.
For the elementary school child just starting kindergarten, to the ninth grader who may be going to a new high school, the changes in logistics can be confusing.
For instance, Saunders said drivers will take extra time to make sure each student knows they’re on the right bus in the morning, and that they get off at the right stop at the end of the day.
Saunders said no one wants to have a case where a child gets off at the wrong stop and gets lost. “So we take that extra time at every school to make sure that we’ve checked every kid, they know their bus, they know where they’re going,” he said.
That, however, can make for delays on the way home.
The SchoolMax system in Prince George’s County that allows parents to check on their child’s schedule and grades also includes information about the bus route assigned to their child, including bus number and stop. There’s also a database that can alert parents to changes on a route.
Parents can also use the “Here Comes the Bus” app, which provides real-time bus tracking.
Competition filling bus driver slots
Like many school systems that run their own bus operations, Saunders said Prince George’s County is also looking for additional drivers. The system has 1,250 buses in the fleet and roughly 1,100 drivers — but recruiting is a year-round process.
“We’re competing with every school district in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia,” Saunders said.
But that’s not the only competition out there. “We’re competing with everyone from the Postal Service to public transportation services,” he added.
And there’s a new wrinkle: “We’re concerned about Amazon coming,” Saunders said, noting the growth in jobs for Amazon’s rapid delivery system. “They all need people who have commercial driver’s licenses.”
Francine Furby, director of transportation for Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, said the situation is similar in her school district. There are 1,625 school buses in the school system’s fleet and 1,300 drivers. The bulk of the students who attend Fairfax County schools take the school bus.
In order to make sure all the routes are covered, Furby said supervisory transportation staff members fill in on an as-needed basis. Not only is the competition for commercial drivers an issue, but retirement of veteran drivers is also a factor in filling those slots, she said.
Furby couldn’t say exactly how many calls the school district got on the first day of school, but she said, “The phones continue to ring” with parents who have questions about bus routes, schedules and drop-off locations.
Just as in Prince George’s County, Fairfax uses the “Here Comes the Bus” app to help parents track their child’s bus.
In Anne Arundel County, Maryland, where one middle school had a bus with standing room only, schools spokesman Bob Mosier said that situation has been resolved. He said on the first day of school, transportation officials got about 1,200 phone calls. It was down to 150 on Monday.
Here are some helpful links for school bus information in the area:
