School Start Time Adjustments Helped With Busing Issues: HCPSS Superintendent

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — Howard County Public School System Superintendent Michael Martirano described adjusting school start times on Wednesday as helping make "significant progress" toward remedying bus issues that have plagued the district since school began.

"I want to thank all of you as we implemented changes to school start times ... You have been phenomenal partners throughout this school year as we have dealt with our transportation challenges, and I want you to know that I appreciate you," Martirano said in a statement Wednesday.

"Today was our third consecutive day of all 500+ bus routes being covered and the adjustments to school and bus times resulted in significant improvements. Compared to yesterday (Tuesday), our morning bus arrival data showed significant improvement with Tier 1 schools going from 83 percent of buses arriving on time to 93 percent, Tier 2 schools from 80 percent to 96 percent on time, and Tier 3 schools from 76 percent to 98 percent on time," Martirano shared.

The superintendent noted that better arrival times were recorded Wednesday afternoon, too, which is when the district had been seeing "significant delays" especially with students at Tier 3 schools.

"Today, with the changes in school and bus times, 93 percent of buses arrived at their Tier 3 school on time and 90 percent completed their routes on time. This is a stark improvement compared to the last several days when only 38 percent of Tier 3 buses arrived at school on time and 25 percent of students arrived home on time," he said.

"It is certainly not perfect and our work is far from being done, but I am encouraged by the progress we made today and very pleased with the direction we are heading," Martirano added.

The district also launched a new form for students and families to report transportation concerns to the HCPSS Office of Student Transportation, designed to help streamline efforts at receiving and responding to concerns, as well as tracking positive feedback.

A community advocacy group called Neighbors for Buses hosted a forum this week because they said thousands of families have been hurt by the busing issues in Howard County.

"Many have felt high levels of emotional strain due to the uncertainties of the simple question: how will my children get to and from school safely?" Howard County resident Corinne Happel said at the forum.

"I also just want to express my disappointment on the direction we are headed. We spent so much time on trying to make a new start time happen and it sounds like 10 minutes is small. The bus actually arrives 25 or 30 minutes earlier. That defeats the purpose of what we're doing here," Howard County Schools System board member, Dr. Linfeng Chen, said during the forum.

To see a full list of all of the school start time changes that started Wednesday, visit this website.

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