Howard County Public Schools is slowly resolving its school bus bungle

COLUMBIA, Md. – Troubles with Howard County Public Schools buses have continued to create ripples in the community. 

On Tuesday, s

This development comes as the district’s chief operating officer, Steve Washington, resigned.  

Now, parents are simply fed up. 

By Wednesday morning, around eight bus routes were still temporarily suspended in Howard County.

Kendall Jennings told WJZ that some of his children haven’t been on a school bus in nearly two weeks. 

“It’s really irritating because right now I am walking up here,” Howard County parent Kendall Jennings said. 

“Families can’t rely on this,” Howard County parent Corinne Happel said.

Corinne Happel is a Howard County parent advocating for those impacted by the ongoing school bus issues.

“Over 3,500 children were slated to lose school bus service and most of those never got their school bus service back,” Happel said. “That was a decision that was made by the school board without a public hearing back months ago.”

Happel also claims the bus issues are disproportionately affecting some of the Title I schools. 

“Children didn’t go to school last week because they had no ride,” Happel said. 

According to the Howard County Public Schools website, Swansfield Elementary is one of a handful of schools with a route still suspended.

It’s also one of a handful of so-called ‘Title I’ schools with at least one suspended bus route as of Wednesday morning.

“At some point, you have to make a decision if you need to get to work… And with these cancellations a lot of families think well if it’s late, maybe they will just never show up,” said Happel. 

In a recent press conference, the district’s superintendent told reporters that school officials are continuing to work on addressing the transportation challenges.

“It creates that challenge on both ends of it as we work through the prevent the precision of delivering students on time and is very regimented schedule,” Michael Martirano, the superintendent of Howard County Public Schools, said. 

The school district told WJZ they are sharing regular updates directly with families on the district’s website.

While Zum, the bus transportation company reports they’ve hired more than two dozen drivers in the last week.