Big changes are coming to Prince George's County Public Schools' transportation system in the fall, in a plan that may involve changing school start and end times and adjusting thousands of bus routes.
The changes would take place for the next school year -- but now is the time for parents to pay attention and weigh in on the changes.
It's an effort to fix major problems with school bus transportation, which have existed in Prince George's County for years. Students have reported waiting long periods of time at bus stops, with some buses not showing up, leaving parents and school leaders frustrated.
But now, school administrators want to make major changes to improve the reliability of bus service.
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"The safety of our students always comes first," said Charoscar Coleman, chief operating officer for PGCPS. "We are tasked with improving the efficiency of our bus system, but we will only do it in a responsible, deliberate and safe manner."
Some of those changes include things like making changes to the district's school bus tracking app, to provide better bus locator information. Parents will also, for the first time, be able to opt their student out of bus transportation if they don't need it.
School leaders told News4 that many students who live in walk zones actually get a bus, due to safety reasons. But that could change. Those stops are under evaluation to see which ones should stay, and which should go.
"The audit cited 22,000 stops that are currently inside the walk zone, that need to be evaluated for safe passage and possible elimination," said Coleman.
There could also be a consolidation of stops to streamline transportation. That might mean students walking further to get to their bus.
"Right now, we're looking at, primarily, up to a half a mile for elementary students," said Keba Baldwin, PGCPS transportation director. "And up to a mile for secondary students."
"But we are not going to move it to beyond a reasonable distance, where we don't have students able to safely traverse to school," said Coleman.
There will also be adjustments to when schools open and dismiss.
"Ninety percent of them will either be no change for the school, or within a 15 minutes or less shift," Coleman said.
The remaining 10% will have changes varying between 16 minutes, up to an hour -- meaning how and when your child gets to school could look very different next school year.
Parents will have the opportunity to find out more about the changes at nine information sessions, starting on April 15.
There is no timetable yet on when the changes will be finalized.
