Standing room only on the school bus

[Anonymous]

Call the bus depot, not the school. The transportation department obviously needs to make some adjustments. No child should be standing while the bus is moving.

[Anonymous]

Doesn't sound safe to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is this "working out the kinks" nonsense? It's not hard to figure out how many buses you need.

If you know where the kids live, it's not hard to figure out a route that will pick them up and allocate the correct number of buses to ensure everyone has a seat.

You all have really low expectations, which I get because it's MCPS, but this is kids' safety we're talking about. It's ridiculous to say "oh it's ok that they're standing or sitting in the aisle. Just give them time to figure it out!"

Yes, it's very easy to run a system that transports 120,000 students twice a day, when you're sitting somewhere typing on your phone on a keyboard.

It's not so easy when you're actually the one doing it, though.

agree, break the county into 4 or 5 or 6 pieces already. it's a disaster every way you look at how MCPS is run. too big.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is this "working out the kinks" nonsense? It's not hard to figure out how many buses you need.

If you know where the kids live, it's not hard to figure out a route that will pick them up and allocate the correct number of buses to ensure everyone has a seat.

You all have really low expectations, which I get because it's MCPS, but this is kids' safety we're talking about. It's ridiculous to say "oh it's ok that they're standing or sitting in the aisle. Just give them time to figure it out!"

Yes, it's very easy to run a system that transports 120,000 students twice a day, when you're sitting somewhere typing on your phone on a keyboard.

It's not so easy when you're actually the one doing it, though.

agree, break the county into 4 or 5 or 6 pieces already. it's a disaster every way you look at how MCPS is run. too big.

You want to break the county up into multiple pieces because everything wasn't perfect about bus transportation during the first few days of school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is this "working out the kinks" nonsense? It's not hard to figure out how many buses you need.

If you know where the kids live, it's not hard to figure out a route that will pick them up and allocate the correct number of buses to ensure everyone has a seat.

You all have really low expectations, which I get because it's MCPS, but this is kids' safety we're talking about. It's ridiculous to say "oh it's ok that they're standing or sitting in the aisle. Just give them time to figure it out!"

Yes, it's very easy to run a system that transports 120,000 students twice a day, when you're sitting somewhere typing on your phone on a keyboard.

It's not so easy when you're actually the one doing it, though.

agree, break the county into 4 or 5 or 6 pieces already. it's a disaster every way you look at how MCPS is run. too big.

You want to break the county up into multiple pieces because everything wasn't perfect about bus transportation during the first few days of school?

1. Kids standing or sitting in the aisle while a bus is driving down the beltway isn't "everything wasn't perfect." It's dangerous.

2. It's actually not hard to figure it out. You do it in stages. Take it cluster by cluster, school by school. It's eminently doable if you're organized about it. Now I'm sure they weren't organized about it, and that's why we're in this mess, but to throw your hands up and say "oh it's just SOOO difficult, so we should just lower our expectations" is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For us they weren't standing, sitting on the floor in the aisle. It didn't help that the principal denied there was a problem, and said the problem was because friends were going home with friends from school when they weren't supposed to. And the bus depot told us they couldn't afford to add another bus at this time. Yes I still have that email.

Here's the suggestion if it hasn't been solved in a week or two. Call the police, have them pull over the bus. It'll be fixed the next day, promise.

At least they were being honest with you. So you have any idea how much school districts spend on busing students, to the detriment of actual educational programs? It’s staggering.

Bussing students to wonderful programs to meet their needs...advanced, tech ed, immersion, special ed..these are valuable educational programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For us they weren't standing, sitting on the floor in the aisle. It didn't help that the principal denied there was a problem, and said the problem was because friends were going home with friends from school when they weren't supposed to. And the bus depot told us they couldn't afford to add another bus at this time. Yes I still have that email.

Here's the suggestion if it hasn't been solved in a week or two. Call the police, have them pull over the bus. It'll be fixed the next day, promise.

At least they were being honest with you. So you have any idea how much school districts spend on busing students, to the detriment of actual educational programs? It’s staggering.

Bussing students to wonderful programs to meet their needs...advanced, tech ed, immersion, special ed..these are valuable educational programs.

Yes, but the programs themselves (and the schools in general) could be so much better without the busing. It is extremely expensive, and school districts have finite budgets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You want to break the county up into multiple pieces because everything wasn't perfect about bus transportation during the first few days of school?

1. Kids standing or sitting in the aisle while a bus is driving down the beltway isn't "everything wasn't perfect." It's dangerous.

2. It's actually not hard to figure it out. You do it in stages. Take it cluster by cluster, school by school. It's eminently doable if you're organized about it. Now I'm sure they weren't organized about it, and that's why we're in this mess, but to throw your hands up and say "oh it's just SOOO difficult, so we should just lower our expectations" is ridiculous.

Then it's a good thing that nobody has done that.

All of the kinks will have been worked out in a week or two. This happens every year. Unexpected stuff happens, and the transportation depots figure it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought standing was not allowed in school buses.

Yes.. in my DC's overcrowded bus, they sit on the floor of the bus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, but the programs themselves (and the schools in general) could be so much better without the busing. It is extremely expensive, and school districts have finite budgets.

The vast majority of busing is busing students to their home schools. Busing to special programs is only a very small component of the cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You want to break the county up into multiple pieces because everything wasn't perfect about bus transportation during the first few days of school?

1. Kids standing or sitting in the aisle while a bus is driving down the beltway isn't "everything wasn't perfect." It's dangerous.

2. It's actually not hard to figure it out. You do it in stages. Take it cluster by cluster, school by school. It's eminently doable if you're organized about it. Now I'm sure they weren't organized about it, and that's why we're in this mess, but to throw your hands up and say "oh it's just SOOO difficult, so we should just lower our expectations" is ridiculous.

Then it's a good thing that nobody has done that.

All of the kinks will have been worked out in a week or two. This happens every year. Unexpected stuff happens, and the transportation depots figure it out.

So you're ok with kids not having seats on the bus for a week or two? Every year? Because I'm not. If my kid didn't have a seat, I'd be livid.

[Anonymous]

1. Kids standing or sitting in the aisle while a bus is driving down the beltway isn't "everything wasn't perfect." It's dangerous.

2. It's actually not hard to figure it out. You do it in stages. Take it cluster by cluster, school by school. It's eminently doable if you're organized about it. Now I'm sure they weren't organized about it, and that's why we're in this mess, but to throw your hands up and say "oh it's just SOOO difficult, so we should just lower our expectations" is ridiculous.

+1 This is basic stuff.

Why isn't a principal that DIRECTS a bus driver to take unsafe practices and break the law (pretty sure its a traffic violation to pack a school bus with kids so its standing room only) being reprimanded??? This is why MCPS is such a mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So you're ok with kids not having seats on the bus for a week or two? Every year? Because I'm not. If my kid didn't have a seat, I'd be livid.

Is there anybody whose kid doesn't have a seat on the bus for a week or two, every year? Or is it that, every year, there are some kids who don't have a seat on the bus for a week or two?

My kid did not have a seat on the bus yesterday. I wasn't livid. I'll find out this afternoon what happened today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, but the programs themselves (and the schools in general) could be so much better without the busing. It is extremely expensive, and school districts have finite budgets.

The vast majority of busing is busing students to their home schools. Busing to special programs is only a very small component of the cost.

Right, my initial comment was not limited to special programs. There is no question that busing over 100,000 students to their home schools on a daily basis is extremely expensive for the district. That money has to come from somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So you're ok with kids not having seats on the bus for a week or two? Every year? Because I'm not. If my kid didn't have a seat, I'd be livid.

Is there anybody whose kid doesn't have a seat on the bus for a week or two, every year? Or is it that, every year, there are some kids who don't have a seat on the bus for a week or two?

My kid did not have a seat on the bus yesterday. I wasn't livid. I'll find out this afternoon what happened today.

Did I say the same kid doesn't have a seat for 1-2 weeks each year? This is the problem with DCUM; you all harp on stupid semantics rather than discuss the actual issue.

What I said is that kids (NOT necessarily the same kids) don't have seats on the bus for 1-2 weeks each year. In my book, that's a problem. Maybe for you, it's something you can just wait out and figure it'll get fixed, but to me it's unacceptable.