Transportation for PGCPS - what can be done

[Anonymous]

Ok so it's only day 2 but good God the routes are taking sooo long. We are at GWES and there were kids that didn't get home until 5:45-6 yesterday. Buses running 30min-an hour or more late just can't be acceptable. What can proactively be done?

I would take off a day from work to sit on the bus and help the driver get used to it if it meant my child's bus driver would learn the route faster. It seems with all of this technology, there should be a better way instead of setting things up for failure. I just don't see a solution since we experienced this last year as well and you keep hoping for things to be better but it's all still the same. So there is a new director o transportation, has anyone heard anything official about what they are doing to improve the bus routing, hiring of drivers, etc.?

[Anonymous]

As far as I know they still have not bought the bus routing software several other huge school districts use. Has anyone heard differently? Same old same old. They cut the driver pay, so they had trouble getting enough last year, right? was that fixed?

[Anonymous]

Do you know if the delay was caused by delays on the actual route or delays leaving the school? For us, there was unorganization in getting the kids on the right bus so they left school 30 minutes late. To me that should be fixed at the school by them putting into some reasonable structure to ensure the teachers start grouping the kids early enough to get on the bus timely.

[Anonymous]

From what I can tell (New poster here) there were systemwide delays the first day of school. I stood at a bus stop in my town and saw at least 5 bus routes with some to significant delays the first day; saw bus drivers who appeared to be looking a a map, asking directions etc.

My sense was that some of them were covering for bus drivers who just hadn't shown up.

By the second day there were more normal delays for the most part -- 15-20 minutes, because kids were delayed getting on the bus at school etc.

By the fourth day, most of the busses appear to be running on time. So I think it is better than last year.

Did people see buses practicing the routes the week before school? I did not.

I would suggest that every parent in PG County unanimously decide that school buses starts on the SECOND day of school. Let's not tell the school system that. Just drive your kids the first day, maybe second, days and let the bus drivers work the kinks out without having any kids on board.

[Anonymous]

Bwahaha. I wish. The driver will probably assume your kid doesn't exist and may never stop at your stop again. But I might be a pessimist.

[Anonymous]

I did see them doing practice runs in my neighborhood the week before.

[Anonymous]

They need to do better. Parents opting out the first day will only mean they don't work out the kinks until day 5 instead of day 4, lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok so it's only day 2 but good God the routes are taking sooo long. We are at GWES and there were kids that didn't get home until 5:45-6 yesterday. Buses running 30min-an hour or more late just can't be acceptable. What can proactively be done?

I would take off a day from work to sit on the bus and help the driver get used to it if it meant my child's bus driver would learn the route faster. It seems with all of this technology, there should be a better way instead of setting things up for failure. I just don't see a solution since we experienced this last year as well and you keep hoping for things to be better but it's all still the same. So there is a new director o transportation, has anyone heard anything official about what they are doing to improve the bus routing, hiring of drivers, etc.?

One of the many reason I pulled my kids from GWES. It doesn't get much better since the busses take the beltway during rush hour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They need to do better. Parents opting out the first day will only mean they don't work out the kinks until day 5 instead of day 4, lol

I disagree. If the kinks are in assigning bus drivers and learning the routes and whatnot, they would run the buses with 5 kids or 25 kids so many kids opting out isn't an issue.

Now if parents opt out for the entire MONTH some bus routes may be altered because of no shows at the bus stops. But you can safely opt out the first 2 days.

[Anonymous]

It's day 5 and I have 2 kids riding different buses -- both completely on time.

Anyone else?

[Anonymous]

We were supposed to be picked up at 8:36 and my son was still out there at 9:15 so I drove him to school. Evening bus is running 15-20 min late.

[Anonymous]

Impressively, I received an automated call last night that my daughter's bus would be late as a result of traffic. That never happened in all the prior years when my son was at PGC. Nice to have the information!