Howard County Bus sick out?

Is there some sort of HoCo Bus planned protest/sick out going on?

I received texts from the county about bus interruptions for today.
I get tests from HCPSS as well as my kids former Elementary and Middle school (Have not gone in to shut those off).
My kids drive now though.

The hourly news updates on WMAL have been saying that’s what it is and that parents are advised to find alternatives for transportation

Dear HCPSS Staff,

The following message will be sent to HCPSS families.

We have learned that bus providers in some parts of the state may take action that will impact school bus services this week. HCPSS staff have been in constant contact with our bus providers and drivers directly over the last several days and do not expect interruptions at this time.

That being said, we wanted to make families and staff aware of the possibility of disruption to transportation so you are prepared to provide an alternate form of transportation in the event that there are any interruptions or delays.

HCPSS does not have its own bus fleet, nor are the bus drivers HCPSS employees. Rather, HCPSS utilizes several contractors for this purpose. We have been working with contractors in recent weeks to enhance incentive pay for drivers for retention and recruitment and it is our sincere hope that disruption will not occur. Unfortunately, the pandemic has exacerbated the bus driver shortages we typically face and has put a significant burden on bus drivers. Recognizing this, we have been proactively working to ensure that we provide additional compensation to the bus drivers who care for our children every day.

Please know that staff from the HCPSS Office of Student Transportation will be monitoring the situation tomorrow morning and all week, and will provide schools with updates if routes can’t be covered or buses will be late. Your child’s school likely will send updates via text or email if disruption is expected. In the event of a bus disruption, students will not be marked tardy to school.

If you choose to drive your child to school, please be prepared for a larger-than-usual car loop and plan accordingly.

Thank you for your understanding as we continue to navigate the myriad of challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

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carpool this morning suuuuuuuuuuuuucked. Some teachers are saying they're not going to be staying at school an hour past their time they get paid for today because of this, so the end of the day might get very interesting. It's probably worth noting, teachers have already been staying at school for 15-30 minutes beyond their contractual time just about every day because of existing bus issues.

Is it a Vax mandate issue or just a supply issue on bus drivers?
I can tell you this, at my kids school, Parents who do not follow the drop off procedures screws with traffic.
Our school has a horse shoe shape drop off area. When the queue in front of them takes off, and the next cars come in, they will stop half way so Johnny or Suzie don't have to walk an extra 20 feet.
OMG! The kids walk several miles a day, you can drive all the way forward and they can walk 20 feet.
Either that or kids will sit in the front seat and for safety reasons, put the back pack in the back seat or worse, in the trunk and take forever to get out of the car (get off the phone kid!), then finally open the back door or trunk to get back pack.
That plus they put the back pack on before closing the door.
For goodness sake. When I dropped my kids off I had them sitting in the back with the backpack on the side. If they were not getting out and setting the backpack down before closing door I was getting on their case.

I swear, I need to volunteer to make a video or power point for my school!

Anne Arundel bus drivers had a sick out last month and got an extra $5/hour thrown their way. Howard County bus drivers paid attention.

HoCo education is a dumpster fire. We moved to this county bc of the education. We are now actively looking to leave bc of the education.

Tungsten said:

HoCo education is a dumpster fire. We moved to this county bc of the education. We are now actively looking to leave bc of the education.

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I've watched this county's school system go to hell in a handbasket with the start of the kungflu. I can't believe I'm happy to say my kids are going to MoCo. I never thought I'd say that. However, I'm ecstatic that we don't have to pay property tax and fund this insanity.

Normally you have a balance between pay, work description for that position, and BS you have to go through for a job. Problem is, .gov payed people to sit on their ass for a year, and the BS involved with pretty much every job became ridiculous with covid measures, so you have shortages. Problem is as demand is increasing, BS isn't really decreasing, and pay hasn't increased, along with a ton of low-moderately skilled openings, people can go where they want. It will stop and some point, and the wage increases just to stay afloat are driving costs up, but it will settle at some point, provided .gov backs off of their share of the imposed BS.

alucard0822 said:

Normally you have a balance between pay, work description for that position, and BS you have to go through for a job. Problem is, .gov payed people to sit on their ass for a year, and the BS involved with pretty much every job became ridiculous with covid measures, so you have shortages. Problem is as demand is increasing, BS isn't really decreasing, and pay hasn't increased, along with a ton of low-moderately skilled openings, people can go where they want. It will stop and some point, and the wage increases just to stay afloat are driving costs up, but it will settle at some point, provided .gov backs off of their share of the imposed BS.

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Not sure if it was Va or also MD but I recall there was somewhere that Bus drivers were working on Contract so when the contract for Summer school did not renew in 2020, the bus drivers were not granted unemployment. So they went to work other places. That plus other reasons (drivers deciding to retire, drivers deciding to not work where masking or just afraid of Covid) there were less drivers. That is what I thought was the covid related shortfall of drivers.

The first magic mike carnival BS that happened after foose left, MM threw bus drivers under the...well... bus. Every year, he has staff from a bunch of schools meet up in auditoriums and then literally does a song and dance that feels more like he's throwing a party in his own honor than anything respecting the time of the teachers. At the first one, he wanted to push "equity" and told a story meant to show how adults in the county are racists that don't get to know kids I guess.

The story went as follows... MM showed up at a school to visit and learned that there was a kid that got 60+ office referrals from the bus driver in the span of 1 month. His reaction was to hop on the bus, and make faces back and forth with the kid for a half hour, then give the kid all kinds of special attention from the superintendent. Later, he visited the kid in the classroom, and the kid told the other bad kids in class magic mike was with him... which MM bragged about. The wrap-up was that the bus driver was wrong because he was rushing to referrals instead of getting to know the kid. There was underlying accusations of racism throughout the story.

Basically any teacher or parent with a brain would have walked away thinking, "wait... why the F was this kid still allowed to be on the bus with 60 referrals in one month? How is the bus driver supposed to sit and get to know this kid on a personal level when he has a bus full of other kids AND it's his responsibility to safely drive the bus." Talking with bus drivers, there's absolutely NO accountability for the kids and they're essentially free to terrorize the buses without consequence. Meanwhile the super is telling everyone in the county a story about how much this bus driver is a racist POS for not emotionally connecting with a completely wild kid.

Plus to add on to the problem for transportation, we recently had race-based redistricting because... equity. In redistricting, the transportation burden increased substantially as they are now busing kids past schools that are closer to their homes in order to balance race at a school that's farther away. It turned walkers into bus riders with a half hour commute. This year, they're having bus drivers drive double-routes to try to alleviate the shortages...so they drive a route and then come back and drive it again to pickup the other kids that wouldn't fit.

I'd be pissed too if I was a bus driver... especially since the community reaction to this is largely, "f bus drivers, quit if you don't like your job".

https://busstops.aacps.org/public/BusRouteIssues.aspx
AACPS people are familiar with this. Every day, I get a text in the morning and a text in the pm that there are transportation issues at my son's school. Parents need to check this list twice daily to see if their kid will have a bus available or not. This has been all year and there is no short-term solution. The county agreed to a pay raise and signing bonus, but that doesn't really do anything to fix the problem until mayyyyyyyyybe the 2022-23 school year. The mismanagement in education is mind-blowing... but at least people can be happy that their 1st grader is racist at a 3rd grade level.

smokey0118 said:

The first magic mike carnival BS that happened after foose left, MM threw bus drivers under the...well... bus. Every year, he has staff from a bunch of schools meet up in auditoriums and then literally does a song and dance that feels more like he's throwing a party in his own honor than anything respecting the time of the teachers. At the first one, he wanted to push "equity" and told a story meant to show how adults in the county are racists that don't get to know kids I guess.<snip>

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The clown you refer to as Magic Mike was a science teacher at my middle school in PG. I thought it was a dumb idea back then when they made him an elementary school principal, and have been blown away at the number of superintendent positions he's had since then. Either 13 year old me was a terrible judge of character or the Peter Principle is in full effect.

Brute said:

The clown you refer to as Magic Mike was a science teacher at my middle school in PG. I thought it was a dumb idea back then when they made him an elementary school principal, and have been blown away at the number of superintendent positions he's had since then. Either 13 year old me was a terrible judge of character or the Peter Principle is in full effect.

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*****Peter Principle. Magic Mike is a moron and I don't really understand how he has been elevated to his current position(s).

A terrible choice and he shouldn't be in the education business, quite frankly.

MaxVO2 said:

*****Peter Principle. Magic Mike is a moron and I don't really understand how he has been elevated to his current position(s).

A terrible choice and he shouldn't be in the education business, quite frankly.

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Neither should the HoCo BOE....

Tungsten said:

HoCo education is a dumpster fire. We moved to this county bc of the education. We are now actively looking to leave bc of the education.

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Where would you move to? I hear Loudon County is nice.

Apparently by some miracle, they largely resolved this between 7am and 3pm yesterday.

Something doesn't smell right.

HoCo must have thrown a lot of $$$ at it I guess.

Wife insisted we be in HoCo when we moved here (worst mistake of my life and I have made a LOT of them). I have been less than impressed with the education system here to put it mildly.

ohen cepel said:

HoCo must have thrown a lot of $$$ at it I guess.

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Calvin is giddily twisting his nips in anticipation of having an excuse to raise taxes even higher.

Paging Fabs

Tungsten said:

HoCo education is a dumpster fire. We moved to this county bc of the education. We are now actively looking to leave bc of the education.

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Fabsroman had the same issue