If the appellant is not satisfied with the decision, a final written appeal may be made to the Board of Education. This process is detailed in the Policy 5200 Implementation Procedures:
V. Walking Route and School Bus Stop Appeals
The HCPSS Division of School Management and Instructional Leadership is working with every school principal to evaluate their bus and car loop procedures to ensure all arrival and dismissal processes are safe and efficient. School administrators sent surveys to the community in the spring and are using the collective feedback to inform and refine the arrival and dismissal process. Additionally, staff from central office and the County are assisting schools as needed through this process.
Students with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or a Section 504 plan that includes transportation automatically receive transportation regardless of whether they reside in a non-transportation area. When students have IEP/504 plans that require accommodations on the bus, the school team will continue to work with bus teams to implement those accommodations.
Students who do not receive transportation as part of their individual plan will continue to travel by the best method as determined by their parent/guardian.
Historically, HCPSS has not provided transportation for students who stay after school for extracurricular activities. Students who participate in these activities do so voluntarily with the understanding that transportation is not provided from school to home. This is not a shift from prior years.
On Friday, Aug. 11, high school students and their parents/guardians can log in to HCPSS Connect to view a list of scheduled courses without details.
Beginning at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 23, all students and parents/guardians can log in to HCPSS Connect to view teachers and schedules.
The measurement from campus to home changed only for elementary schools resulting in approximately 1,200 students from pre-k through grade 5 who now live in non-transportation areas. Making a change for just elementary students would result in the need for approximately 24 additional bus routes. An increase of any routes above 478 would not be able to be implemented successfully.
As the school system does not provide before and after care, HCPSS supports the providers that utilize our schools for this service and work with them to accept as many children as their staffing and the location can safely allow. These programs will serve as many children and families as they can manage.
For 2023-2024, drop-off and pickup procedures have been updated for many of our schools and have been shared with families. Please be sure to read these communications from your school and familiarize yourself with any changes in procedures to help make arrivals and departures on the first day of school as safe and efficient as possible. Changes in procedures were based on community surveys and feedback.
Principals will continue to evaluate processes for improvement at each school as students return at the start of the school year.
Hazard buses remain.
Hazard buses are used inside non-transportation areas when there are hazards that prevent students from getting to school safely. When implementing the use of new routing software for the 2023-2024 school year, there were a few instances of identified hazards that did not transfer to the new routing software. However, those instances have since been evaluated with the County and planned for accordingly. Where hazards were confirmed, transportation service has been reinstated to those families.
The Student Walking Route and Bus Stop Review Committee has been in place for years and consists of three members: the Howard County Bureau of Highways Traffic Engineering Division, the Howard County Office of Transportation, and a community citizen, who is a volunteer that demonstrates a wealth of knowledge in this area and is familiar with the entire county transportation infrastructure. Staff from HCPSS are not part of this committee, which is intentional to maintain impartiality.
