School Bus

Harford County Public Schools has released school bus schedules and routes for the 2011-12 school year which begins Monday, Aug. 29. The schedules are posted online. To access the route page on the school system's website, click here . According to the school system, approximately 35,000 of the 38,000 public school students in Harford County are transported by school buses daily. Since routes are based on estimated fall enrollments, school officials remind parents and students to expect minor adjustments in bus loads and schedules during the first week of school in order to alleviate any overcrowded buses.

More than a half million dollars has been committed to law enforcement agencies across the state to improve school bus safety, the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention announced Monday. Though the commitment comes months after a one-day study the State Department of Education discovered more than 7,000 violations by drivers regarding school bus safety, the two are not related, a state spokesman said. "There's no direct cause and effect," said Bill Toohey, a spokesman for the Office of Crime Control and Prevention.

When it comes to maneuvering a 35-foot-long school bus, Dave Edwards tries to think in simple terms. "It's a really big minivan," he says jokingly. Edwards, a driver from Mechanicsville, and approximately 100 others from across the country showed off their expertise in parking, cornering and braking on Sunday at the School Bus Driver International Safety Competition in Anne Arundel County. During the all-day competition, drivers simulated parallel parking, backing out of alleys, crossing railroad tracks and picking up students among other activities.

Today is the last day of school for Baltimore County and I have mixed feelings about not seeing yellow buses chugging along North County roads. Unless I’m running late, I love being behind a school bus as it picks up students, especially kindergartners or first-graders. I grin when they get a quick hug and kiss from Mom before they mount the huge steps into the bus. I also smile when the kids jump down the steps and run off the bus, waving an art project in the air or clutching an important paper.

Varsity athlete Graham Dennis never thought of the pen knife he carried in his bag to repair his lacrosse stick's strings as a dangerous weapon. It was a tool of the sport, he believed, until Easton High School officials found the item in a search of bags on a school bus headed for a game. Dennis and teammate Casey Edsall, who had a lighter that he also used to repair equipment, were sent to the principal's office and the police were called. Dennis was hauled off in handcuffs to be fingerprinted and charged as a juvenile with possession of a deadly weapon.

I agree with Ron Wirsing's April 6 letter that bicyclists should be licensed. A day does not pass that I do not witness a bicyclist violate the 3-foot law by weaving through stopped traffic at an intersection, then run a red light or fail to even slow down, much less stop, at a stop sign. I have seen bicyclists ignore a school bus with flashing red lights and breeze by the flagman on a road crew. I have seen bicyclists riding at night with no headlights or taillights. Mr. Wirsing is right: The only solution is to require licensing and a safety course.

As Anne Arundel County school bus driver Linda LaMarsh made the third stop on Mountain Road during her late run Wednesday afternoon, she put on her hazard lights, then her yellow lights, then her red lights that warn drivers not to pass while children are getting off. The driver of a dark blue sedan traveling in the opposite direction didn't even pause while blowing through the lights and LaMarsh's extended stop sign — flagrantly committing a...

A Laurel minister whose two young daughters were placed on the wrong bus Thursday and left unaccompanied at a stop says their elementary school called the police on him after he went to the school and became agitated. C.J. Blair, 38, said he went to the Brock Bridge Elementary School in Laurel after his children, Tatianna, 7, a first-grader, and Gabrianna, 5, who is in kindergarten, failed to get dropped off at their bus stop at the usual time. Blair, who said he picks up the children every day after school, said he was told by other youngsters on the bus that his children might have been placed on a different bus. He said that he went to the school and became upset when school officials told him the missing children had indeed been placed on a different bus and had been dropped off unaccompanied.

Baltimore City Council members called Thursday for strengthened policies and supervision of school transportation for special-needs students — a discussion spurred by the death of a 6-year-old who fell from the back of a moving school bus last month. In a hearing called by the council's education committee, experts and parents also criticized school bus practices and procedures as insufficient in meeting the needs of special-education students, who make up the majority of students carried by city-owned and -contracted yellow school buses.

Few experiences can be more unnerving to a parent than temporarily losing track of a toddler or very young child. It usually means a frantic search with one's heart in one's mouth, all the while imagining the worst, even when it turns out the child has wandered no farther than into the next room. So one can empathize with Megan Brown, the Harford County mother who earlier this month spent 40 anxious minutes desperately searching for her 4-year-old son, Luke, after his school bus arrived earlier than usual in front their house in Darlington and the driver left him there unattended.