No bus service on 18 routes
Shortage of drivers makes for a chaotic opening day at Anne Arundel schools
Lara Garcia took her second grader to the bus stop at 7:45 a.m. Wednesday morning, about 15 minutes before bus 311 to Eastport Elementary School was scheduled to arrive.
Kids were there at the stop with them, ready for the first day of in-person classes after a year-and-a-half of virtual and hybrid learning caused by a pandemic.
But 7:59 a.m. came and went. At 8:15 a.m. Garcia left her child at the bus stop and went to get her car, telling her daughter to get on the bus if it came. It didn’t come, and Garcia drove her to Eastport Elementary School. Garcia took off Wednesday so she didn’t need to get to work.
The issue is a shortage of bus drivers in the county, which mirrors a national trend, schools spokesman Bob Mosier said. A total of 18 routes were not in service Wednesday morning and afternoon. In a back-toschool message sent to families Monday, the system mentioned a driver shortage and said routes canceled as a result will be posted daily at aacps.org/ buses.
Garcia said she did check that website and saw that their bus was canceled — but she got no kind of notice in the days before. She said she is worried for her Spanish-speaking neighbors who could have trouble with the English language webpage and those who need to work and cannot bring their children to school.
She saw kids walking home from the bus stop this morning after she was able to drive her own daughter to school.
“I don’t know how their kids are going to get to school,” Garcia said.
Annapolis Middle School and Eastport Elementary PTSA President Jess Pachler said she doesn’t think the system did enough to communicate to parents that bus service wouldn’t be available. She said eight of the 18 routes with no service are in the Annapolis cluster of schools.
Routes 78, 80, 149, 159, 211, 225, 238, 240, 243, 277, 287, 297, 353, 364, 379 and 381 were canceled Wednesday morning and afternoon. Service to Sheppard Pratt Reisterstown, where high school students with emotional disabilities or autism spectrum disorder go to learn, was more than an hour late in the morning and afternoon, according to the site.
Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley said the city has reached out to schools to find out more about what caused eight buses in the Annapolis cluster to cancel service unexpectedly Wednesday. He said students can ride city buses for free.
Eastport Elementary parent Jackie Solis lives in Primrose Hill, about 2 miles away from Eastport Elementary, and said she doesn’t think it is safe for her second- and fifth-grade kids to walk to school. She was able to drive her own children to school but knows at least one family whose children will miss school until bus service returns.
“She told me her kid was almost crying,” Solis said.
Parent and former board candidate India Ochs said she is embarrassed that AACPS would leave so many kids stranded. She decided to drive her child to his magnet program at Bates Middle School, but otherwise he could have been stuck waiting for a connector bus, she said.
“We know there is a driver shortage, but families should not be getting notifications hours after school starts that there is no bus service, especially those who rely on public school transportation to get safely to and from school,” she said.