A recent shortage of MCPS bus drivers resulted in students not being able to find transportation to school, as a large portion of students rely on the bus. This was caused by the ongoing pandemic and the omicron virus. 

MCPS encourages parents and caregivers on affected routes to take children to and from school if they can. If they cannot, they are to contact the school, and will be given an excused absence if they can’t get to school. 

With the lack of bus drivers, MCPS sent out frequent updates to parents and students. In a message on Wednesday January 5th, MCPS shared that 82 out of 1228 bus routes were impacted.

Shortages of bus routes put a toll on many parents, as now parents have to leave their work and/or job to make sure their child  gets to school on time. 

Some parents in MCPS even have to cancel work because of the lack of bus drivers.

Students at RHS have been affected as well, as buses have just not shown up consistently.

“On Wednesday morning I walked to my bus stop, and usually it’ll come around 7:10 but it was a bit late. I waited for another ten minutes, but then I started to think ‘where’s my bus?’’, senior Andres Samayoa said. “All my friends on that bus were very annoyed and angry.”

RHS principal Rhoshanda Pyles is notified at the end of the day when buses may not arrive because of driver shortages. Little has been done to notify students that their bus will not be arriving in advance.

Previously, MCPS asked the Maryland Army National Guard for help in driving students to and from school. The  county requested 200 bus drivers on  Jan.6, as 90 bus routes were taken offline. In a recent message from MCPS, they stated that the request for bus drivers had been much wider than just for the National Guard. 

“They are desperate to find drivers,” Montgomery County spokesperson Ohene Gyapong told ABC7.