Prince George’s County parents upset about school bus delays, long commutes home for students

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, Md. ( DC News Now ) — Some Prince George’s County parents are upset and are making their voices heard about school bus delay problems.

It takes some kids two hours just to get home from school.

Parent Marquita Broady is calling on school leaders to resolve the issues. Her son Ulice is an 11th grader at Charles Flowers High School in Springdale, Md.

“It is very frustrating, especially for him. He’s in his junior year of high school and there are a lot of demands academically for him so to have to be up at five in the morning and then a two-hour commute home and then have to do homework,” Broady said. “He has no time to be a child and it is not acceptable.”

Ulice gets out of class at 2:10 p.m. at Flowers High School. From there, his bus drives him 15 minutes away to Duval High School, where he and other students wait an hour for those students to get out of class. Then, they all board another bus and are dropped off at home.

“If you are going to have school bus rides that are sharing schools together, then they need to be in close proximity to each other,” Broady said. “You have Flowers High that gets out at 2:10 p.m. and you have Duval that gets out at 3:10 p.m. So you want those kids that leave Flowers to go to another school and wait until this school gets out? … [B]oth schools need to get out at 2:10 p.m.”

Ulice said the ordeal is frustrating and he wants something done to fix the problem.

“Going on this two-hour bus ride every day – it’s usually hot and it’s long and there [is] not much to do, and it’s really annoying to have to go through that. Not just for me but for everyone else on the bus,” he said.

In a statement from Prince George’s County Public Schools, Lynn Mccawley said, “The first week of school we averaged about 100 issues per day. We are working hard to resolve families’ concerns as quickly as possible. As we strive for improvement, families can help by sharing concerns about their child’s bus or walking route.”

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