Good evening,

My name is Caroline Decaire-Goldin and I am a current PGCPS parent, former PGCPS teacher, and a candidate for the Board of Education District 2. I am here today for two purposes: to celebrate the start of school and to amplify severe and urgent concerns about PGCPS transportation. As the County Executive has yet to make an appointment for our PGCPS Board of Education vacancy, I stand here today to elevate the voices that are not represented formally by this body.

I want to start off by thanking the bus drivers, school staff, crossing guards and PTO leaders who have gone above and beyond to support families returning to school or starting for the first time. As a former teacher, I know that every email and phone call school staff field about transportation concerns falls into the "other duties as assigned" bucket and yet they pursue answers with empathy and urgency. I also have to thank the behind-the-scenes network of parents who are looking out for one another - the group chats that activate at the first stop to let you know the bus is on the way and the committees that planned incredible back-to-school meetups, giveaways and meet-and-greets. This is what is so special about our PGCPS community.

However, throughout this week I have been told horror stories about PGCPS busing. Imagine you are a Greenbelt parent sending your kindergartener to school for the first time. You never received your bus assignment on the Chipmunk app and fought for weeks to get information. On the first day of school, your child does not show up to aftercare as planned. Frantically, you track their location via your own personal tracking device and find the bus they are on. When they finally arrive, you find out the substitute bus driver had the wrong student roster, got lost, and your child was on the bus for over two hours.

There are many other failures: Families in College Park sat at a bus stop, waiting for a bus to Dora Kennedy that never came. In Riverdale, one family was the last stop on a crowded bus that required students to sit four to a seat.

There are local chats with parents sharing their students aren't getting home until 8 p.m., some in tears because they are the lone kid on a big bus driving in the dark after a nearly 12-hour day. There are numerous stories of students getting put on the wrong bus and parents unable to get information about the route or location of their student.

I could go on about how the Chipmunk app still is not working and about Dora Kennedy/Goddard's 2-hour-long drop-off lines. There are news reports and posts about the problems—they are well-documented. But right now families need solutions and action - and being told to be "patient" or "wait a few weeks" when students are being lost or forgotten is frankly unacceptable and dismissive. 

I also want to make clear that it is a privilege to have a car to go find your child, to be able to drop everything when a bus doesn't show to drop them off or pick them up. That is not an education system that works for every child and that is not equity in action.

These problems cost us time, money, learning, and underneath it all, trust.

Here are six recommendations crowdsourced from District 2 families and other PGCPS stakeholders:

1. Immediately implement a weekly Board of Education special session with the PGCPS Superintendent and Director of Transportation to provide updates on progress related to 1) Chipmunk app functionality; 2) On-time pickups; 3) On-time drop-offs; 4) Average delays; 5) Transportation support ticket rate of redress and closure.

2. Immediately implement a web-based dashboard that details morning and afternoon route delays and publish it on the PGCPS site. Immediately develop and activate a standard operated procedure via Chipmunk to flag when there is a substitute bus driver. 

3. During FY27, add a Transportation widget to the PGCPS CSI Dashboards and make public the rate of on-time pickups and drop-offs across the county, with average delay times for each, along with any other KPIs from the Strategic Realignment Working Group proposals. 

4. During FY27, expedite the identification and pilot of High-Capacity Hub Stops as discussed during last week's Strategic Realignment Working Group presentation and begin hosting community listening sessions to identify and publicly post proposed pilot hubs by January 1, 2027. Add in an additional stop consolidation review during the first two months of school. 

5. During FY27, adopt a School Bus Route Transparency Process that establishes an annual route-planning calendar, publicly available routing criteria, advance communication of changes, meaningful opportunities for community input, a documented safety-review process, and annual reporting on transportation performance. 

6. Finally, bring bus driver voice into problem-solving. They are closest to the work and likely have ideas for short- and long-term improvements.