Kiva Baldwin, Director of Transportation at Central Garage, told the committee the district is implementing operational changes to reduce long student commute times and improve bus-driver utilization, beginning with a pilot to establish hub stops in partnership with Prince George's County Parks and Recreation and a search for a more reliable parent bus-tracking app.

Chief Operations Officer Dr. Coleman introduced the transportation update by noting the district completed a third-party transportation audit and began implementing five priority recommendations this school year. Baldwin said many students in specialty programs have long ride times; some students board as early as 7 a.m. for a 9:30 a.m. start. He said drivers for those runs are underutilized because long routes produce fewer trips per driver.

To address long rides and improve utilization, Baldwin proposed centralizing some pickup locations at Parks and Recreation facilities. He said the benefits would include improved efficiency, reduced ride times, increased driver utilization and enhanced accessibility for parents. The district plans a pilot focused on specialty programs with large boundaries—examples mentioned include immersion programs at Phyllis E. Williams and others—and will evaluate expansion if the pilot succeeds.

On the parent app, Baldwin acknowledged problems with the current Stop Finder system and said PGCPS is actively researching routing and parent-app vendors that can handle system complexity, including substitutions, splitting trips and combining runs—scenarios that currently reduce tracking accuracy. The district will conduct a parent survey and build a prototype, then test and train staff; Baldwin said training for drivers and continuous improvement will be part of implementation.

Board members asked whether other districts’ systems had been reviewed and whether the app procurement would avoid “reinventing the wheel.” Baldwin and Dr. Coleman said the district is researching vendors used by comparable large districts and will choose a system that integrates with routing and covers operational realities such as split trips and driver substitutions.

The district said the pilot and app implementation are tentatively scheduled to begin in the 2025–26 school year, with parent notifications planned before the end of the 2024–25 year. Cost discussions are ongoing; Baldwin said current routing/GPS costs are bundled with bus-camera system costs and the district is still determining budget implications for a new app. The district and Parks and Rec are discussing use of facilities as supervised “safe havens” where children could wait indoors; initial proposals said there would be no cost to families for standard pickup/dropoff at hub stops, though extended before/after care could carry fees if families requested it.

Why it matters: Long bus rides and unreliable tracking directly affect students’ readiness to learn and parents’ ability to plan, and the district said the hub-stop approach could cut ride times significantly in initial routing exercises.

What’s next: PGCPS will run a pilot in select specialty-program routes in 2025–26, survey parents, prototype and test a new parent-app integration with routing, and return to the board with timelines, budget implications and pilot evaluation results.

(Procedural items: the committee adopted the March agenda and approved the prior meeting minutes earlier in the session by unanimous consent; no roll-call tallies were provided in the transcript.)