Would regional program bus rides actually be short? How long are current CES & regional program bus rides?

[Anonymous]

So this whole 6 region proposal is designed around getting students shorter bus rides, right? Do we know if that is actually likely to happen, though? How long are CES bus rides usually (should presumably be a little shorter than regional programs since there are more than 6 CESes)? What about the regional IBs, or any other regional programs that serve a handful of high schools? How does that compare to the bus times to get to countywide or half-county programs? Is it a big improvement or not really?

(Just curious because while I know the middle school magnets are not regional, we live less than 10 minutes from one of them so would potentially be sent to it if it became regional, yet apparently my child would need to leave the house at 7 and get on a bus around 7:10-7:15 in order to get to a middle school magnet 3 miles away that starts at 8:15. Is this kind of thing common and would we expect to see things like this for the new HS regional programs too, in which case there will still be tons of people turning it down because the commute is too much? Or are we an outlier and most kids taking a bus to a nearby school that's not their home school have a reasonable bus ride?)

[Anonymous]

Lol, in my new region, WJ HS to Wheaton HS will take 20 minutes right now, at 2:30 on Saturday. That's no morning or afternoon traffic, and no stops, just one HS to another. Now imagine a student is 10 minutes further west of WJ HS. So no, it won't be short bus rides.

This entire thing feels like a lot of money to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic

[Anonymous]

Our CES bus ride (to a school 15 minutes drive from our house) was so long and epic that my kids still talk about it 5 years later.

[Anonymous]

Whitman to Blair will not change just because Blair became regional

[Anonymous]

The new regional model only considers adding in HS to HS buses, so your kid needs to get up even earlier, riding a bus to local HS, and then another bus to the regional program. It’s gonna be logistically a disaster.

[Anonymous]

It's going to be a logistical nightmare, but it's not like the existing system was great either. There's just no good solution when kids need to be transported any great distance in an urban environment.

We live in Bethesda. My kids decided against attending the Blair magnet when they heard from older kids what the commute was like.

[Anonymous]

The superintendent stated at the August 21 BOE meeting that transportation costs are now unknowable for the regional programming model. So much for transportation times and costs being the main driver for all these regional changes, as originally claimed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The new regional model only considers adding in HS to HS buses, so your kid needs to get up even earlier, riding a bus to local HS, and then another bus to the regional program. It’s gonna be logistically a disaster.

The buses start with transporting for high schools, then move on to transport for MSs and ESs. Think what this new regional programming system will do to MS and ES schedules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The new regional model only considers adding in HS to HS buses, so your kid needs to get up even earlier, riding a bus to local HS, and then another bus to the regional program. It’s gonna be logistically a disaster.

Wait, what? Are you sure? We're nowhere near our high school. That sounds even worse and more inaccessible than the current model. Why are they proposing all these changes for "convenience" if that's all they're planning on offering?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So this whole 6 region proposal is designed around getting students shorter bus rides, right? Do we know if that is actually likely to happen, though? How long are CES bus rides usually (should presumably be a little shorter than regional programs since there are more than 6 CESes)? What about the regional IBs, or any other regional programs that serve a handful of high schools? How does that compare to the bus times to get to countywide or half-county programs? Is it a big improvement or not really?

(Just curious because while I know the middle school magnets are not regional, we live less than 10 minutes from one of them so would potentially be sent to it if it became regional, yet apparently my child would need to leave the house at 7 and get on a bus around 7:10-7:15 in order to get to a middle school magnet 3 miles away that starts at 8:15. Is this kind of thing common and would we expect to see things like this for the new HS regional programs too, in which case there will still be tons of people turning it down because the commute is too much? Or are we an outlier and most kids taking a bus to a nearby school that's not their home school have a reasonable bus ride?)

You can look at bus routes for the schools within the DCC to give you some indication of how long bus rides can get presently. I think one in the DCC is like 75 minutes from first pick-up to drop off at the school.

But otherwise, no one seems to have done a transportation study to investigate how long bus rides would be. The same is true for the boundary studies, which also neglect any information on bus ride length or time.

[Anonymous]

But also: the length of the actual bus rides that occur is dependent on the students who actually agree to take the bus rides. It's a chicken and egg problem.

E.g., a kid at Whitman might get into Blair magnet, but then decide not to go to the magnet since the bus ride time is too long. Then that bus ride length wouldn't show up in any eventual data that is developed on bus ride times (just as it isn't now).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The new regional model only considers adding in HS to HS buses, so your kid needs to get up even earlier, riding a bus to local HS, and then another bus to the regional program. It’s gonna be logistically a disaster.

Are they really going to provide door to door bussing? Or will it be like the current magnets where there are a few stops in the area but they are not walks ke from every neighborhood. Like my son's stop was at our ES...but we had to drive him there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The new regional model only considers adding in HS to HS buses, so your kid needs to get up even earlier, riding a bus to local HS, and then another bus to the regional program. It’s gonna be logistically a disaster.

Are they really going to provide door to door bussing? Or will it be like the current magnets where there are a few stops in the area but they are not walks ke from every neighborhood. Like my son's stop was at our ES...but we had to drive him there.

Their most recent updates shown in their slide decks only take into account HS to HS transportation. There is no plan or calculation of additional cost if every ES, MS and community centers would require a stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The new regional model only considers adding in HS to HS buses, so your kid needs to get up even earlier, riding a bus to local HS, and then another bus to the regional program. It’s gonna be logistically a disaster.

Wait, what? Are you sure? We're nowhere near our high school. That sounds even worse and more inaccessible than the current model. Why are they proposing all these changes for "convenience" if that's all they're planning on offering?

I’m sure this is the current plan on their most recent presentation slides. If an ES or MS is on the route between HSs, they might add additional stops, but otherwise, their cost estimates do not include stops at local ES, MS, libraries or community centers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The new regional model only considers adding in HS to HS buses, so your kid needs to get up even earlier, riding a bus to local HS, and then another bus to the regional program. It’s gonna be logistically a disaster.

Are they really going to provide door to door bussing? Or will it be like the current magnets where there are a few stops in the area but they are not walks ke from every neighborhood. Like my son's stop was at our ES...but we had to drive him there.

Their most recent updates shown in their slide decks only take into account HS to HS transportation. There is no plan or calculation of additional cost if every ES, MS and community centers would require a stop.

So every HS kid will arrive at their local HS with enough time for the magnet kids to take a second bus ride to their magnet school unless they have an alternate way to get to school?? How will they all be supervised?