More than a month into the school year, some Prince George’s County, Maryland, families are still experiencing issues with school bus routes and the app used to track their kids’ buses.
Nichole Hall said her son who attends Frederick Douglass High School in Upper Marlboro walked nearly 7 miles to his home after school one day when his bus didn’t go to his assigned bus stop.
“Oh, I was pissed. I was, I was not happy about it,” Hall told News4.
“Bus driver – I’m assuming she didn’t know where she was going, he or she didn’t know where they were going and took my son and several other students back to Frederick Douglass, dropped them off at high school,” she said.
Hall said when she tries to track the school bus using the Chipmunk app it never appears to come close to her son’s assigned bus stop.
Some parents say they’re still experiencing issues, while others say things are getting better. News4’s Jessica Albert reports.
“You feel like when is something going to change?” she said.
When school started on Aug. 25, many families reported having transportation issues for days, including buses not showing up to pick up their kids, incorrect information on the Chipmunk app and long lines at school drop off and pickup.
“When we reported this year, many of the runs we bid on did not reflect our actual assignments,” a school bus driver said during a recent school board meeting.
Prince George’s County Public Schools said 10,000 students didn’t have a bus route assigned to them on the first day of school. In the days after, school leadership took steps to address what they said were failures.
Part of the district’s plan included a 27-member transportation surge team throughout the opening-of-school period, a new transportation transition team and an audit of the bus-tracking Chipmunk app and contract.
Prince George’s County Public Schools also announced that director of transportation Keba Baldwin would step down, and former COO Mark Fossett would serve as acting director of transportation.
Superintendent Dr. Shawn Joseph and transportation leaders presented an update on the issues to the school board Thursday night.
“We’re actively identifying and eliminating immediate operational bottlenecks to stabilize the daily performance while simultaneously addressing the root organizational and technical causes of this crisis,” Joseph said.
The school district’s transportation department said it has hired 10 drivers who are in training, conducted interviews for new router positions and is working with human resources to fill scheduler and routing supervisor positions.
PGCPS said it also plans to roll out a transportation dashboard for families.
Parents told News4 that while the district said it’s working to fix the issues, they want to ensure their children can get safely to and from school without missing class time.
“My children’s safety and their education is first, but in the meantime, they need to get it under control, or lower my tax bill. Something got to give,” Hall said.
