Prince George’s County Public Schools COO Charoscar Coleman, right, said Keba Baldwin works to creatively solve a number student transportation challenges.
“Director Baldwin has been extremely focused on
implementing those recommendations with fidelity and systematically and tracking it using data and input and support from 4Mativ.” He said bell time alignment was a big project led by transportation, which included involving the entire district in conversations. He noted that Baldwin also looked for creative solu-
tions for the school bus driver shortage. One of those was creating a non-CDL driver position as well as the implementation of contracted services. Baldwin said navigating the driver shortage is an
ongoing challenge consisting of “quarterly updates, com- municating the positive while still sharing our challenges and just being transparent about what we’re doing,” he said, adding that data is showing the district is making a difference. “We are more intentional about diminishing our bus driver shortage, and we’re still making strides operationally. The sky’s the limit for us right now.” He said keeping that mentality helps change the per- spective when complaints arise.
“We already know what’s negative. We already know
there’s a driver shortage,” he said. “If we’re going to talk about it, let’s talk about how we’re going to get rid of it, how we’re going to minimize it. And that’s where we talk about operations and look at what we’re doing already and showing that positive result.” Baldwin said every day is like a puzzle, where bus terminal teams address the routes based on driver at- tendance for the day and vacant routes. Sometimes trips have to be combined or spilt to assign to other drivers, which does delay bus stop time and school arrival times. Using vans is another solution. “We’ve been very transparent to families to understand
that, yes, we are going to use current drivers to cover the uncovered runners. As a result, there will be delays because they’re doing the work,” he said, adding that this year the charge was to be more intentional to notify parents of the bus status. “We’re going to let you know so that you have the choice whether or not you want to be out there waiting for the bus or if you want to take your child to school yourself. But our duty was to let you
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