Leslie’s daughter finally had a Prince George’s County Public Schools bus route. The problem was that the bus never came.
After receiving the assignment over the weekend, Leslie said she watched the district’s Chipmunk tracking app as the assigned bus traveled about 25 minutes away from her neighborhood each morning before heading directly to the school. Despite repeated calls to transportation, the bus never came to her daughter’s stop, the parent who identified herself only as Leslie said during the school district’s telephone town hall on Wednesday.
Her daughter eventually began catching another bus whose driver already served the area, but because that was not her official assignment, Leslie still could not track the bus through the district’s system.
“When I talk to transportation, they tell me I have to tell the school to change the route,” Leslie told district officials during a telephone town hall on Wednesday. “When I talk to the school, they’re like they can’t really change the route.”
Leslie’s experience illustrated the distinction officials repeatedly made during the meeting: The district has worked through an opening-of-school backlog of roughly 10,000 students who needed bus assignments, but an assignment does not necessarily mean a student has reliable transportation.PGCPS serves more than 130,000 students overall, with more than 74,000 expected to rely on district transportation this school year.
Addressing families during the town hall, Joseph acknowledged that clearing the assignment backlog did not mean the district’s transportation problems were fully resolved.
“Transportation is not fixed because a child’s name appears in a computer system,” Superintendent Shawn Joseph said. “Transportation is not fixed if a child has transportation in the morning, but not in the afternoon.”
That gap between an assignment on paper and a functioning bus route emerged repeatedly as parents questioned district leaders about buses that did not arrive, incorrect stops, inconsistent pickup times and inaccurate information in the Chipmunk app.
A live poll conducted during the town hall suggested many participating families were still experiencing problems. Thirty-five percent of callers who responded said service remained delayed or travel times were too long. Another 24% said their child was still waiting for a completed route assignment. Twenty-three percent said service had improved, but minor delays remained, while 18% said their child’s service was fully resolved and operating on time.
Joseph apologized for the opening-week failures, saying the problems disrupted families’ schedules and left some parents without information about where their children were or when buses would arrive.
A caller who identified herself only as Debbie said her son, a student with disabilities who attends Kettering Middle School, should receive door-to-door transportation on a specialized bus. He had no bus during the first week, she said. The following week, he was assigned to a regular bus with a stop two streets from his home.
“This is the second week I still have no bus for my son,” Debbie said.
She said she had called transportation every morning when the office opened and contacted school staff, but the response was generally that another email would be sent to the person responsible for routing.
“When you email them, you don’t get any response,” she said. “You don’t get anything.”
Chief Operating Officer Shiraskar Coleman told Debbie that transportation staff specializing in students with disabilities would follow up with Kettering Middle School. Coleman said the district planned to prioritize incoming complaints involving safety and special education.
Heather Morgan, a parent of two students, said Chipmunk sometimes showed a bus approaching that never arrived. In another instance, she said, the app showed her daughter being dropped off after she was already home.
Coleman said the district is reviewing its full transportation process, including routing, technology, implementation, employee training and vendor support.
Chipmunk is also used by school systems in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. Other districts caution families that the app’s estimated arrival times can be affected by GPS and cellular connectivity. Monroe County Schools in Georgia, for example, tells families that bus locations typically update every 15 to 30 seconds under ideal conditions but may update less frequently when cellular service is poor.
PGCPS officials, however, said their review extends beyond the app to the routing, training and transportation systems that supply it with information.
Karen, whose son attends Crossland High School, said her family drove him to school every day during the first week because his bus was unreliable. The following week, the bus continued arriving at inconsistent times, including one morning when it arrived at 6:15 a.m., 10 minutes before its scheduled 6:25 pickup, causing her son to miss it.
Thankfully my husband was able to take him to school,” Karen said. “But the bus is not consistent.”
District officials said some fluctuation is expected as routes are adjusted for newly enrolled students and actual ridership becomes clearer. Coleman said the annual balancing process generally takes three to four weeks and can cause changes in pickup times and ride lengths. Joseph said communication between families and the school system will be essential as routes stabilize.PGCPS had warned families that delays and temporary route adjustments could occur during the opening weeks and later advised parents that adding previously unrouted students could change existing pickup and drop-off times. Families were directed to check ParentVUE and Chipmunk for updated schedules.
But officials also acknowledged that families had struggled to get answers when problems occurred.
Coleman said the school district had heard complaints about unanswered calls, requests without timely follow-up and families who did not know where to turn. The district is directing families with unresolved transportation issues to a new centralized email system at bushelp@pgcps.org, where officials said complaints should receive an acknowledgment within 24 hours, though not necessarily a resolution.
Joseph said improving customer service must accompany improvements to bus service.
“When a parent is standing at a bus stop with a child, and the bus has not arrived, receiving a response days later is not sufficient,” Joseph said.
“A ticket number is not a solution,” he added. “A callback after the crisis has passed is not a solution.”
The effort is unfolding amid a leadership transition in the Transportation Department, where former Chief Operating Officer Mark Fossett has taken over as acting director following last week’s announcement that Keba Baldwin would be stepping down.
Joseph said senior district leaders were not informed before the first day of school that approximately 10,000 students remained without routes. By the afternoon of Aug. 25, the district had publicly identified the size of the backlog. Joseph said that had leadership known a week earlier, the district could have assembled the additional staff it later used to work through the backlog before classes began.
“We ultimately had to go into a reaction mode [rather] than being proactive,” Joseph said. “We have to communicate internally more effectively.”
“That unfortunately didn’t happen this year.”
Officials said the district will publish weekly transportation updates and continue tracking incomplete assignments, ride times and other measures of performance.
For families, Joseph said, the measurement is simpler.
“Does your child have a complete and accurate transportation assignment? Does the bus arrive reliably?” he said. “And when you need assistance, can you receive accurate information in a timely response?”
La Tetra Metts-Owens is a reporter for HUNewsService.com. She covers Prince George’s County.
