LEONARDTOWN, Md. — Since the school year started, there have been roughly a dozen complaints about the St. Mary’s County Public Schools (SMCPS) bus system and how it is highly overcrowded. These complaints came in after an image of a Leonardtown High School bus showed students stacked on top of each other while others were sitting in the aisles.
However, the SMCPS department of transportation has said that buses are not overcrowded. Instead, these buses are at “full capacity” and meet the requisite guidelines.
“The buses are not overcapacity. When we get a concern, we have to review the concerns by verifying the total number of buses and how many students are riding the bus,” Jeff Thompson, Director of Transportation, said. “When we develop our bus routes, we consider every potential student that may need to ride the bus. It even includes students that drive themselves to the high school.”
But, Thompson mentioned things seem more crowded for high school students because their bodies are growing. As a result, it leaves less space for students to use on the bus and compromises the initial plan of having three students to a seat.
“As the students get older and their bodies grow, they take up a little more space, so it gets a little less comfortable when they are traveling together on the bus,” Thompson said. “When you get a high school bus that sometimes requires the students to sit three in a seat, students are not comfortable with that aspect. It may not be desirable for students to sit three in a seat, but it is acceptable. We also allow one student per aisle to stand while we are making adjustments.”
Some might argue that it is a health concern to have students sit three to a seat in an enclosed area because of COVID-19. Contrary to that, the department of transportation is following guidelines outlined by the board of education.
“As stated by our Board of Education and the superintendent, our schools have returned to full capacity which also means our school buses have returned to full capacity, so we are operating our school buses at the same capacity level that we normally operate,” Thompson said.
Although their operation meets the board of education’s standard, the schools are trying to make adjustments to accommodate these complaints. However, other issues make it difficult to make any adjustments.
“We make adjustments to the bus route while we look at other buses. One item now that I think most people are aware of is that there is a nationwide shortage of school bus drivers. There is not the ability to go out and grab a new school bus driver and throw them on a route,” Thompson said. “Now in St. Mary’s, we are better than most school systems in Maryland and across the country, but we are still not immune to a school bus driver shortage.”
Since it is not an option to add more buses to routes, the department of transportation has to move students around to different buses to balance it out. But, this solution has a major drawback as well.
“It is not as simple as adding a second bus or a brand new bus to a school. We have to move buses around and make adjustments to routes which affects all the kids on another bus and all those parents,” Thompson explained.
Overall, whatever they decide will likely negatively affect another student and their family. Additionally, this is not a unique situation for this year, so SMCPS’s department of transportation is prepared to make the hard decisions behind these adjustments.
“No matter what change you make, it may resolve one item, but it can open up other potential issues that conflict with the parent’s schedules. Therefore, we do not rush through this decision,” Joe Longobardi, Supervisor of Transportation, said. “This is not unique to this year. This is the normal process that we go through any year at the start of the school year because you can not really predict these things.”
Contact our news desk at news@thebaynet.com