Anonymous wrote:So many decisions are made based on free transportation. Snow days, flooded roads, start times, end times. It’s ridiculous. We need to do away with school buses, boost the public buses and make decisions based on what’s best for our kids.
You want elementary school kids to get on RideOn buses alone?
Even if you limited it to HS, RideOn routes could never scale up to meet the demand before and after school.
In plenty of cities ES kids get in the bus. At the very least MS/HS kids get on the bus and train.
I have a hard time imagining my 6-year-old getting on a city bus. Actually no, I know exactly what would happen.
Regardless, let's say, as you seem to suggest, we keep buses for ES, and have MS/HS ride non-school public transportation.
How would that work? RideOn only carries 57,000 riders per day. MCPS reports 100,000 students ride the bus, typically twice per day. That's an extra 200,000 rides.
Now, obviously not all of those are middle/high school students, but you're still looking at increasing rides per day by 3-4x.
Worse, those rides obviously aren't spread throughout the day or throughout the system. Most of the riders would be going to a handful of places. But they'd need to get picked up from wider range of bus stops than currently exist. So many, many more buses would be needed. For only on some routes that pass schools, and only for a couple hours each day.
In an area of higher density housing, workplaces, and transit, this could be workable. You would expect a higher percentage of walkers. And higher-capacity rail service carrying some of the burden. But this wouldn't work in a place like MoCo.
I don't think you're familiar with how RideOn and Metrobus work in Montgomery County. You go to a bus stop, you get on the bus, you take the bus until you get to your stop, then you get off. And many of the routes have different frequencies, depending on time of day.
I don't think you understand the massive increase in resources that would be necessary to accommodate potentially 200,000 more rides each day. And high schools and middle schools aren't transit hubs in the current county bus routes.
And what about the wide swaths of the county that aren't anywhere near a bus stop?
You make this statement like increasing ridership and transit routes/capabilities should not be a key priority for a county that wants to grow and keeps building dense housing. For that matter a county that has Sustainability goals.
Except adults wouldn't be going to the same place as kids, so those new buses would take awfully circuitous routes.
Why? Most of the high schools, right now, are served by existing routes. Kids could take existing buses, on existing routes, to and from school. Which kids are actually currently doing, right now. Even middle-school kids.
You can't be serious. Do you have idea how many school buses serve each high school compared to the number of RideOn buses that stop near the high school within 30 minutes of start time?
Do you think buses are magical vehicles with unlimited capacity? And what about all the kids that to those schools that don't happen to be served by the bus route that goes to the school? You think there's enough capacity at transfer points and routes?
You're either trolling or you haven't thought this through. I'm not sure which.
If you think high school start times should be later (which maybe you don't, who knows), then you have to provide solutions for how kids will get to and from school without expanding school bus transportation.
Existing public transportation is one of those solutions. Not the only solution. Not the solution that will work for everyone everywhere in the county. Not the solution that would allow MCPS to say: starting next year, all schools start at 8 am, and we expect everyone to take RideOn/Metrobus/Metrorail to school!!!! But ONE OF THOSE SOLUTIONS. Why are you disagreeing with this? It's ALREADY one of the transportation solutions for MCPS kids, but here you are saying no no no no unpossible no.
In fact, MCPS should be doing it already, regardless of school start times.. It makes no sense to expend more public funds on a separate, parallel school bus transportation system, in places where the public bus transportation can serve the purpose. It's wasteful of MCPS money and Montgomery County money, and it's also bad for the environment.
You're the one pushing for a later start time, but you haven't proposed a plan to accommodate it. As you suggest, public transit could play a role in that, you haven't even acknowledged the challenges there, much less proposed plausible solutions to them?
Do you live inside beltway? Density and school locations would make it very hard to meaningfully integrate school and county bus operations. A very large number of kids need to get to specific places at specific times. And while the times line up similarly to when adults need to begin their commutes, they're going to different locations than where the kids are going. So for coverage, capacity, and routing reasons, you'd need a lot more buses and routes. Only many of those would only be needed at specific times of the day. And that what the school bus service already does.
As it happens, I am actually not pushing for later start times. I am merely saying that public transportation would help the goal of later start times, for people who have that goal. I am also not advocating for the complete abolition of school bus transportation.
Why you are so invested in arguing that public transportation would not help? Obviously it wouldn't work for everybody, and yes, some changes might be required, but nobody is saying that it would work for everybody and that no changes of any sort would be required.
So, if we still need the existing school bus system, and school bus system logistics prevent changing times, how would we use the county buses? And what benefit would be gained?
You refuse to actually describe what you want to see.
Some kids would take public transportation, other kids would continue to take school buses, and the benefit would be that MCPS would need fewer school buses and fewer school bus drivers and/or could use those school buses/school bus drivers for other routes.
I will note that RideOn is the Montgomery County bus system, but Montgomery County is also served by Metrobus, which is the WMATA bus system.
Where do you live, that you never see kids getting off or on RideOn or Metrobus buses at school?
As you said, some are already doing that. I haven't seen very much of it, but I have no doubt that's true.
So what are you proposing that would be different enough today to allow changes to school schedules? Even somehow dropping a 1 out of the 4 bus runs would double RideOn's daily ridership numbers.
That would be a good thing, no?
Not, it's neutral. Why is it inherently better for a kid to be on a RideOn bus than a school bus?
I think you could argue overall the experience could be worse. I'm not sure how you could argue it would be better.
Anonymous wrote:700+ signatures. Signed by students, caretakers AND Pediatricians!!! We can do this, MCPS!
A petition doesn't do much good if there's no way to do what's being asked.
Did you read the entire thread? Ideas, that may or may not have been proposed in the last study of bell times, are here. What solutions can you bring before you shut it down with a "no way"?
Yes, I have. And no one has articulated a coherent solution. "Just flip ES and HS" ignores a variety of problems. "Use public transit" isn't a solution on its own, particularly when the poster refuses to explain how.
That would only work for MS and HS and many kids don't have a public transit option near their house that takes them directly to school. We don't. Our only option is to drive or walk and walking is not safe. So, the county would have to add a lot more public buses. Not to mention the safety issues on public buses.
Anonymous wrote:So many decisions are made based on free transportation. Snow days, flooded roads, start times, end times. It’s ridiculous. We need to do away with school buses, boost the public buses and make decisions based on what’s best for our kids.
You want elementary school kids to get on RideOn buses alone?
Even if you limited it to HS, RideOn routes could never scale up to meet the demand before and after school.
In plenty of cities ES kids get in the bus. At the very least MS/HS kids get on the bus and train.
I have a hard time imagining my 6-year-old getting on a city bus. Actually no, I know exactly what would happen.
Regardless, let's say, as you seem to suggest, we keep buses for ES, and have MS/HS ride non-school public transportation.
How would that work? RideOn only carries 57,000 riders per day. MCPS reports 100,000 students ride the bus, typically twice per day. That's an extra 200,000 rides.
Now, obviously not all of those are middle/high school students, but you're still looking at increasing rides per day by 3-4x.
Worse, those rides obviously aren't spread throughout the day or throughout the system. Most of the riders would be going to a handful of places. But they'd need to get picked up from wider range of bus stops than currently exist. So many, many more buses would be needed. For only on some routes that pass schools, and only for a couple hours each day.
In an area of higher density housing, workplaces, and transit, this could be workable. You would expect a higher percentage of walkers. And higher-capacity rail service carrying some of the burden. But this wouldn't work in a place like MoCo.
I don't think you're familiar with how RideOn and Metrobus work in Montgomery County. You go to a bus stop, you get on the bus, you take the bus until you get to your stop, then you get off. And many of the routes have different frequencies, depending on time of day.
I don't think you understand the massive increase in resources that would be necessary to accommodate potentially 200,000 more rides each day. And high schools and middle schools aren't transit hubs in the current county bus routes.
And what about the wide swaths of the county that aren't anywhere near a bus stop?
The great thing about buses is that they can accommodate more riders.
Nobody is proposing that students should take public transit (RideOn, Metrobus, Metro rail, MARC train, Purple Line when it opens) where there isn't any.
Not to mention that the "wide swaths" of the county that aren't anywhere near a bus stop also don't have most of the people. The wide swaths of the county that are near bus stops have most of the people.
I really can't tell if you're being serious here. Buses have a fixed capacity. What you seem to be describing-- moving 200,000 daily school bus rides onto a system currently providing 57,000 daily rises-- greatly exceeds the capacity. Besides that, the routes are not set up to efficiently carry people to schools.
Could you solve the capacity, coverage, and problems? Sure, but you'd basically have to recreate the MCPS bus routes.
Kids are already taking public buses to and from school. Somehow they are able to do something you consider impossible.
Blair, Northwood, TPMS, SSIMS, and Eastern all have many students who commute via Ride On.
You mean magnet programs that probably don't have bus service.
Anonymous wrote:I think the down county consortium should test this approach and use a later start time at one of the DCC high schools. The density of ES is high enough here that you might even be able to free up the right number of busses by give people a choice between a late vs early ES. This would let MCPS test the idea without forcing anyone into it. If enough people want it, you can grow the number of schools doing it and if it causes issues or no one actually wants to live with what a later hs start time means, they can discontinue it.
How about HS 9:00a-3:45p. Is that really too late to start practice for athletic teens?
Our swim starts at 3:45, so yes, slight issue. And, there are morning practices as well. Our school swim practices start either early in the AM or 3 PM. Not including sports and other activities for our kids. Plus homework. That 45 minutes after school is a big deal. And, many parents need older kids to watch younger kids after school. How would that work when there are not enough after school spots as it is?
Anonymous wrote:700+ signatures. Signed by students, caretakers AND Pediatricians!!! We can do this, MCPS!
A petition doesn't do much good if there's no way to do what's being asked.
Did you read the entire thread? Ideas, that may or may not have been proposed in the last study of bell times, are here. What solutions can you bring before you shut it down with a "no way"?
None of the ideas posed in this thread are legitimate, practical, implementable solutions. They're half-baked, impractical fantasies.
The same thread gets resurrected every couple of months by the same old kooks. They are unable to see the big picture.
The way you’re throwing around “kooks” and “nut jobs,” you seem very triggered. If this subject touches a nerve, maybe you should avoid these threads.
The person who brings this up every couple of months does seem distributed.
Anonymous wrote:To those refusing to TRY to think of another schedule - everything has a tradeoff.
This. There is no perfect solution that anyone of us can come up with in 5 minutes of thinking about it. MCPS has people who can be assigned to work on the best options. Even starting HS at 8.15 am instead of 7.45 am would be a big positive step
Just set your clocks forward by 30 minutes and you get a later start time. Problem solved!
Anonymous wrote:To those refusing to TRY to think of another schedule - everything has a tradeoff.
This. There is no perfect solution that anyone of us can come up with in 5 minutes of thinking about it. MCPS has people who can be assigned to work on the best options. Even starting HS at 8.15 am instead of 7.45 am would be a big positive step
Just set your clocks forward by 30 minutes and you get a later start time. Problem solved!
Anonymous wrote:I think the down county consortium should test this approach and use a later start time at one of the DCC high schools. The density of ES is high enough here that you might even be able to free up the right number of busses by give people a choice between a late vs early ES. This would let MCPS test the idea without forcing anyone into it. If enough people want it, you can grow the number of schools doing it and if it causes issues or no one actually wants to live with what a later hs start time means, they can discontinue it.
How about HS 9:00a-3:45p. Is that really too late to start practice for athletic teens?
Our swim starts at 3:45, so yes, slight issue. And, there are morning practices as well. Our school swim practices start either early in the AM or 3 PM. Not including sports and other activities for our kids. Plus homework. That 45 minutes after school is a big deal. And, many parents need older kids to watch younger kids after school. How would that work when there are not enough after school spots as it is?
My kid goes to (private) HS 845-315, it works just fine. Other school systems and communities have figured this out.
Anonymous wrote:I think the down county consortium should test this approach and use a later start time at one of the DCC high schools. The density of ES is high enough here that you might even be able to free up the right number of busses by give people a choice between a late vs early ES. This would let MCPS test the idea without forcing anyone into it. If enough people want it, you can grow the number of schools doing it and if it causes issues or no one actually wants to live with what a later hs start time means, they can discontinue it.
How about HS 9:00a-3:45p. Is that really too late to start practice for athletic teens?
Our swim starts at 3:45, so yes, slight issue. And, there are morning practices as well. Our school swim practices start either early in the AM or 3 PM. Not including sports and other activities for our kids. Plus homework. That 45 minutes after school is a big deal. And, many parents need older kids to watch younger kids after school. How would that work when there are not enough after school spots as it is?
My kid goes to (private) HS 845-315, it works just fine. Other school systems and communities have figured this out.
Sure, if you're willing to give MCPS enough money to pay for twice as manybuses and drivers.
Anonymous wrote:I think the down county consortium should test this approach and use a later start time at one of the DCC high schools. The density of ES is high enough here that you might even be able to free up the right number of busses by give people a choice between a late vs early ES. This would let MCPS test the idea without forcing anyone into it. If enough people want it, you can grow the number of schools doing it and if it causes issues or no one actually wants to live with what a later hs start time means, they can discontinue it.
How about HS 9:00a-3:45p. Is that really too late to start practice for athletic teens?
Our swim starts at 3:45, so yes, slight issue. And, there are morning practices as well. Our school swim practices start either early in the AM or 3 PM. Not including sports and other activities for our kids. Plus homework. That 45 minutes after school is a big deal. And, many parents need older kids to watch younger kids after school. How would that work when there are not enough after school spots as it is?
My kid goes to (private) HS 845-315, it works just fine. Other school systems and communities have figured this out.
Anonymous wrote:I think the down county consortium should test this approach and use a later start time at one of the DCC high schools. The density of ES is high enough here that you might even be able to free up the right number of busses by give people a choice between a late vs early ES. This would let MCPS test the idea without forcing anyone into it. If enough people want it, you can grow the number of schools doing it and if it causes issues or no one actually wants to live with what a later hs start time means, they can discontinue it.
How about HS 9:00a-3:45p. Is that really too late to start practice for athletic teens?
Our swim starts at 3:45, so yes, slight issue. And, there are morning practices as well. Our school swim practices start either early in the AM or 3 PM. Not including sports and other activities for our kids. Plus homework. That 45 minutes after school is a big deal. And, many parents need older kids to watch younger kids after school. How would that work when there are not enough after school spots as it is?
My kid goes to (private) HS 845-315, it works just fine. Other school systems and communities have figured this out.
Why are you here then. We don't care what private does, this is MCPS.
Anonymous wrote:I think the down county consortium should test this approach and use a later start time at one of the DCC high schools. The density of ES is high enough here that you might even be able to free up the right number of busses by give people a choice between a late vs early ES. This would let MCPS test the idea without forcing anyone into it. If enough people want it, you can grow the number of schools doing it and if it causes issues or no one actually wants to live with what a later hs start time means, they can discontinue it.
How about HS 9:00a-3:45p. Is that really too late to start practice for athletic teens?
Our swim starts at 3:45, so yes, slight issue. And, there are morning practices as well. Our school swim practices start either early in the AM or 3 PM. Not including sports and other activities for our kids. Plus homework. That 45 minutes after school is a big deal. And, many parents need older kids to watch younger kids after school. How would that work when there are not enough after school spots as it is?
My kid goes to (private) HS 845-315, it works just fine. Other school systems and communities have figured this out.
How does this work with 162000 students? Your private HS has how many students? And, parents provide transportation. Sure.
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