PGCPS outlines phased Chipmunk bus-tracking rollout as parents press for safety fixes

Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS) presented a phased rollout of a new routing system and parent app on Dec. 1 as parents told the board the district’s transportation problems have endangered children.

Superintendent Dr. Joseph introduced Transportation Director Kiba Baldwin, who said the district is integrating a new Bus Planner routing engine with existing Transfinder data and rolling out the Chipmunk app in phases to avoid the problems that accompanied a prior mass launch. Baldwin said lettered routes were validated early and comprehensive routes began the week of Nov. 17, with Nov. 21 as the first rollout date.

“From a technical perspective, this work required aligning many variables including student assignments, school-level data, route structures, bell schedules, driver assignments, and GPS travel codes into one clean ecosystem,” Baldwin said, noting that the district has seen “week-over-week stability improvements.”

Why it matters: parents at the meeting described repeated operational failures — missed pickups, long late-afternoon returns and a Nov. 17 incident in which a 4‑year‑old was dropped off at the wrong stop — and urged faster fixes and stronger accountability. Those firsthand accounts framed board members’ questions during a lengthy Q&A about app access, multilingual tutorials and human-centered service.

Parent Sheree Ellis told the board her 4‑year‑old’s bus route showed incorrect information in ParentVUE, the bus did not arrive in the first three weeks and one afternoon the child was dropped at the wrong stop in Clinton. Ellis said she waited two weeks for a callback after filing a complaint and urged the district to treat student safety as the top priority.

Board members asked about reported discrepancies in app display, translation into additional languages and the sample size behind the app’s early rating. Baldwin said the app’s in‑app survey returned about 137 responses and that the district has roughly 10,000 subscribers; active users are fewer than subscribers. She also said the Chipmunk tutorial and handbook have been translated into Spanish and that translation into other languages is “in the works.”

“Parents only need to download the app, create a user account with the same email from their ParentVUE account,” Baldwin said, adding the district built a website hub, video tutorial and chatbot to support families.

Board members pressed for more than technology fixes: training, role‑plays and better customer service. Baldwin said the district has instituted professional development and role play for phone‑bank staff and drivers and holds monthly safety meetings that can pivot to behavior management or customer service topics.

Operational metrics the board heard: Baldwin reported roughly 28,000 students across 140 schools gained access to the app in the week of Nov. 17; about 27,000 more students (155 schools) were expected on Dec. 2, and roughly 31,000 additional students (157 schools) on Dec. 15. She said internal service logs showed about 1,700 TRS (transportation request system) inquiries from September to November and roughly 1,400 resolutions in that period.

What’s next: the district will continue phased rollouts by bus depot, expand multilingual tutorial resources, keep pushing community engagement events to help families download and use the app, and pursue back‑end programming fixes as new issues are reported. Parents and some board members urged a stronger human‑centered response in tandem with the technical rollout, including quicker callbacks and clearer support pathways for urgent transportation emergencies.