by Amy Alford

My kindergartener’s buses have been astonishingly late during this first week of school. We drove him to Robert Goddard the first morning (Tuesday), but he rode the school bus home that afternoon. His bus was scheduled to arrive at the stop at 4:27, and it actually arrived at 5:15. His school day had officially ended at 3:55, one hour and 20 minutes before he arrived home.

When the bus had not appeared at 5:05, I called the school and was told that it had only arrived at the school to pick up students 10 minutes earlier. That leaves the school scrambling to provide supervision for students for an indefinite period. The second day (Wednesday), we arrived at the bus stop with ten minutes to spare (as PGCPS requests) before the scheduled pick up time of 8:39. The bus finally arrived to pick up my son at 9:30, a full 15 minutes after the school day is scheduled to begin.

Both mornings I tried calling the transportation department’s phone bank, as suggested on bus route letters to parents and on the PGCPS website. Wednesday morning, I called at 9:10 and waited on hold until the bus arrived at 9:30. I tried again at 11:30 am on Thursday, once it seemed reasonable to assume that all students had made it to school.  After 20 minutes on hold, I finally got through. The gentleman who answered was polite and efficient, and looked up the bus lot supervisor in charge of my son’s routes. He gave me a name and phone number and let me know that the lot supervisor is responsible for both the drivers and buses and is the person to call about both specific issues with buses and lost items left on school buses.

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