Bus tracking app failures left 10,000 Prince George’s students without a ride on the first day

Prince George’s County School District leaders acknowledged that they fell short on the first day of school after a new bus tracking app crashed and routing failures left roughly 10,000 students without an assigned bus route.

Gathered at the Bladensburg school bus lot Monday afternoon, alongside a handful of frustrated parents, district officials asked for patience as they navigate the transition to the Chipmunk tracking and routing system. But for many families, the chaos felt like a repeat of systemic transportation issues, which also plagued the district’s summer school program in July.

“Just to be frank, we didn’t meet our expectations today,” Chief Operating Officer Dr. Charoscar Coleman said. “Our goal was to have every student arrive on time and safely. We didn’t meet that mark.”

Coleman attributed the problem to the shift to the new bus routing platform and an influx of late and new enrollees to the district’s almost 80,000 bus riders. He added that the district has “augmented staff” to ensure faster and accurate routes.

Yet for parents like Carrie Weletz, whose children attend Dora Kennedy French Immersion School, this is an old tune. As of Tuesday morning, the first day of classes, her second and fifth grader still did not have an assigned bus route in the app.

“If I were to put my children on the bus, the end of the school day is 3:45 officially at Dora Kennedy, they wouldn’t get home till 6:30,” Weletz said. “That’s just untenable.”

She said she is fortunate enough to drive her kids, but many families in the county lack that safety net.

Despite the rough start, transportation leaders and representatives from BusPlanner, which created the Chimpunk tracking app, insisted the software will stabilize.

“With new technology nuances appear, learning curves appear, and that’s where we are,” Transportation Director Keba Baldwin said. “Outside of today, I feel good about the direction we are going.”

Binford Sloan, a representative from the vendor BusPlanner, said the company remains confident the system can handle the district’s complex challenges after the initial difficulties are resolved.

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