A week after the app used to bus children to and from Prince George’s County schools left thousands of students stranded, the school system says it has cleared the 10,000-student bus backlog and has announced a new director of transportation.
Keba Baldwin will step down as Prince George’s County Public Schools’ director of transportation, according to an announcement Sunday. Mark Fossett, a former chief operating officer for the school system, will temporarily assume the role and start a new transition team tasked with stabilizing school transportation services and filling critical vacancies throughout the department.
PGCPS Superintendent Shawn Joseph said the change is about more than responding to one week’s challenges.
“It is about building the systems, capacity and culture necessary to provide families with the reliable service they deserve. We resolved the immediate backlog,” he said. “Now we must use what we have learned to build a stronger transportation operation for the future.”
The change in leadership comes after the school system experienced significant challenges getting children to and from school. At the start of the school year last week, PGCPS grappled with a backlog of 10,000 bus assignments for students.
That backlog was cleared as of Sunday when the school system announced every student has an assigned bus route thanks to transportation staff who worked through the weekend processing and distributing updated run sheets.
New routes will be used starting Monday. Families can access adjusted transportation assignments and pickup times through the Chipmunk app or ParentVUE portal.
School leaders also scheduled a telephone town hall for families to ask questions about the PGCPS action plan at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Despite the short-term progress, Chief Operating Officer Charoscar Coleman said there was more work to be done addressing operations and customer service challenges.
In response, the 27-member transportation surge team will stay in place through the opening period of the school year to handle changes that may arise from new students, family moves, address modifications and other requests. Staff will review bus routes to address errors that previously created long ride times and other routing issues.
Come Monday, the district’s telephone system will be automated as school leaders hope to provide parents faster responses to questions, better track calls and monitor response times.
“We will use this moment of setback to address long-standing issues within the transportation department, including customer service,” Joseph said. “It represents Phase 1 of a broader customer service improvement effort that is needed throughout our school district.”
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