Maryland family frustrated after school bus unable to pick up daughter with wheelchair

School systems all over the area are still ironing out the bugs in their transportation systems, amid a shortage of school bus drivers.

For one Prince George's county family, the bugs have been big ones.

Dominique Hynes worked for a smooth start to the school year for her daughter, Dream.

“It was supposed to be her first time riding the school bus,” she said.

Hynes registered with the new Parent-View system and arranged a bus to take Dream from school to aftercare

As the school year approached, she checked and rechecked and found the bus route had changed and the drop off was wrong.

“And it was a bus coming to our home, not aftercare,” Hynes said.

No one would be home, as Hynes works at another school with a day ending later than Dream’s.

She made the corrections, and she kept checking.

It’s a good thing she did, because two days before the start of school, “the afternoon bus route completely disappeared from the system,” Hynes said.

She was told it would be fixed by the start of school so on the first day.

“School started, she still had no bus,” Hynes said.

Then, repeated calls and hours on hold with the Transportation Branch and more back and forth and arranging rides until it finally looked like a go — a bus with room for Dream and her wheelchair for the ride from school to aftercare.

“Around two o’clock I was at work and got a phone call that she had not been put on the bus because there was no room for her,” Hynes said.

She wasn’t left alone, and a teacher stayed with her at school for two hours.

The next time Dream was supposed to ride the bus — Wednesday — Hynes received another call at work.

“And told me they did not put her on the bus, that there was no room,” she said.

Hynes left work again; it took her more than an hour to get to Dream’s school.

“There was still no bus that had come back for her,” she said.

Hynes is still paying for aftercare, which Dream has yet to attend, but it’s not just the financial toll — it affects Dream, too.

“At least three times in the last three weeks she has been the last kid there,” she said. “The staff is staying past their contracted times with her.”

News4 Reached out to the county school system. The response:

“The PGCPS transportation team is working to address all transportation and walking route concerns as quickly as possible. Staff have been in contact with the family to apologize for their experience and resolve the issue by assigning a new bus for the afternoon route.”

“Riding the bus is something I've been nervous about in general,” Hynes said. “And then adding this on top of it makes it so much more stressful.”