New bus routes roll out after rocky first week for Prince George’s County
This story is part of WTOP’s 2026 Back to School coverage.
Despite Prince George’s County Public Schools saying it has cleared a backlog of 10,000 students who hadn’t been assigned a bus route, some parents Monday said their children still don’t have a complete bus schedule, and others chose to drive their children to school amid the confusion.
Denise Douglas, associate superintendent of communications and community engagement told WTOP that a team of 27 workers spent the weekend completing the task of matching students to bus routes.
“That initial backlog of the 10,000 students who were not routed at this point — they’re clear, they have buses,” Douglas said.
Douglas said assigning routes was only a first step.
“We still have to refine the system, which is a normal course of things, as we begin a school year,” Douglas said.
Michael Giese, of Cheverly, Maryland, the parent of two children who are returning to two different schools begs to differ.
“Neither one of them still has a morning bus assignment,” Giese told WTOP.
Giese said he checked the Chipmunk monitoring app regularly over the weekend, and Monday morning, but still saw no routes for his children.
“I took my child, and picked up another child for Dora Kennedy French Immersion School,” Giese said. “I drove them to school and encountered the backup that’s out on the road, because of all the extra parents doing what I’m doing.”
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At Ellen Ochoa Middle School, in Landover Hills, all the buses arrived on time, with apparently full buses of children walking into school before the first bell rang.
However, several parents decided to drive their children to school Monday morning, out of concern that they might be tardy.
“I didn’t see the bus at the time they were supposed to pick her up, so that’s why I dropped her off,” one father said. “Now I’ll go on with my own business.”
Asked what it will take for him to feel confident that school bus service is reliable, he expressed confidence that the situation would soon be resolved.
“School just started, right, so let’s wait,” he said. “Things don’t happen rapidly … especially when school begins, so just be patient, and we know things (are) gonna be OK.”
Douglas said the school system is working to alleviate parents’ frustration over their inability to communicate with PGCPS about the transportation situation.
Over the weekend, Keba Baldwin stepped down as director of transportation, and Mark Fossett, a former chief operating officer for PGCPS has assumed the role of acting director.
“We are working on automating our phone systems to be able to get better quicker responses to parents, and that’s beginning this week,” Douglas said. “We’ll be able to verbally respond once we get that in place, but for now we’re referring everybody to our website.”
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