ELKRIDGE, Md. — It was a widely celebrated decision: bus service would be restored for thousands of students in the Howard County Public School System.
Then, some parents found out their children are now being left in the dust.
"I assumed that maybe it was an oversight," Colleen Kirby Shanks recalled thinking when she first learned of the changes coming to her son's bus service this upcoming school year.
Some Howard County students left without bus service again due to transportation changes
Let's rewind to the 2023-2024 school year. The school system increased the distance a student needed to live from school in order to qualify for transportation. The goal was to help with the new staggered school start times, but it effectively cut bus service for more than 3,000 students. Some kids as young as five had to walk a mile to school. After public outcry regarding safety concerns, the school system reversed course.
Zones were redrawn, and most students who lost their buses are getting them back starting in the fall of this year. But in the process, other families were cut out.
"Does that make any sense? Because there's already a bus that's gonna be coming around and picking up all the children on this loop. They're just not going to stop for ours," Kirby Shanks said, showing WMAR-2 News the map of her neighborhood. The darker shaded portion is not getting bus service.
Kirby Shanks lives in a town home community off the busy intersection of Meadowridge Road and Old Stockbridge Drive. Her 9 year-old son attends Bellows Spring Elementary School. He's always taken the bus. But this year his address falls just outside the boundary.
"I don't understand why our children are deemed to be not as important as all the other children who are now getting buses. They're taking ours away, because they're acknowledging it's not safe, but telling us that it's fine for our children to be put in danger," Kirby Shanks told WMAR-2 News.
According to the school system's new policy, the "maximum distance" elementary students may walk to school is set at .75 miles.
But that's from property line to property line, not door to door. For Kirby Shanks' son and the other kids in his neighborhood, it's a 1 mile walk uphill to Bellows Spring Elementary. They have to cross a dangerous intersection.
"From my bedroom window at night, I hear accidents all the time," she said. "Cars coming around to make a right or a left, they don't see the walkers in the crosswalk."
In response to her concerns, the director of student transportation told Kirby Shanks that her property line is approximately .67 miles from the school's, and that "pedestrian safety improvements and the addition of a crossing guard were factors that contributed to this decision."
"Even with crossing guards,do we want our 5 year olds, 6-year-olds, 7-year olds crossing this major intersection?" Kirby Shanks asked. "ot only is it this main intersection, but they're crossing 5 additional streets."
An In Focus look at past bus issues in Howard County
Parents are able to submit an appeal form with HCPSS.
