HCPSS Anticipates Bus Delays, Route Suspensions For Second Week Of School

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — As school enters its second week for Howard County Public School System students, superintendent Michael Martirano addressed transportation issues again.

Twelve out of 20 bus routes temporarily suspended last week have been restored. The contractor, Zum Transportation, aims to restore two additional routes Wednesday.

The following eight routes will remain temporarily suspended during the second week of school:

• 1148 – Atholton HS, Cradlerock ES
• 1165 – Atholton HS, Wilde Lake MS
• 1070 – Hammond HS, Hammond MS, Guilford ES
• 1089 – Hammond HS, Bollman Bridge ES, Gorman Crossing ES
• 1090 – Hammond HS, Bollman Bridge ES, Gorman Crossing ES
• 1144 – Atholton HS, Swansfield ES, Waterloo ES
• 1173 – Wilde Lake HS, Bryant Woods ES, Running Brook ES
• 1201 – Long Reach HS, Phelps Luck ES, Atholton ES

The Zum Transportation mobile app soon will be available for parents to track their students' buses. In the meantime, the school district will post a list online of buses running behind, which will be updated approximately every 20 minutes.

"We expect some delays this week again, particularly for tier 2 and tier 3 schools, which start at 8:40 a.m. and 9:15 a.m. respectively," the district noted.

Due to ongoing transportation challenges, start times for several athletic contests will be adjusted from between 30 minutes to one hour later this week.

This week’s adjusted times, according to the school district, are as follows:

Soccer and field hockey

• JV – 5:30 p.m.
• Varsity – 7 p.m.

Volleyball

• JV – 5:30 p.m.
• Varsity – 7 p.m.
• Freshman will be rescheduled

Football

• JV – 5:30 p.m.
• Varsity – 8 p.m.

"While we have been able to address many issues, we continue to experience delays during both the morning and afternoon bus runs for our schools with start times at 8:40 a.m. and 9:15 a.m. The compression of the start times to support our goal of starting schools later has taken out any slack that we used to have in our routes and it is not realistically possible to keep buses on schedule due to the tight turnaround. We have reviewed bus arrival and departure data and have talked with many experienced drivers from several contractors during the week and know that it is highly likely that an adjustment to some school start times, as well as pick-up times, will be necessary to make sure buses can arrive on time and students do not have to endure long wait times in the afternoon to get picked up," the school district noted.