As school districts across the country continue to deal with a shortage of bus drivers, one Prince George’s County parent said its affecting her child's grades.
“They miss their first period almost every day,” said Tamika Gaskin, a mother of three students at Dr. Henry A. Wise Jr. High School.
School starts at 8:30 a.m. but Gaskin said the school bus has been arriving just before 9 a.m., which has had an impact on her daughter’s first-period grades.
"It just kept dropping on a weekly basis, and I’m a parent that checks weekly," Gaskin said. "Like, your weekend depends on how well you are doing in school."
Gaskin has resorted to Uber to get her kids to school as she and her husband have to arrive at work at 8 a.m.
“It cost us between $120 and $200,” she said. “We need more bus drivers in PG County.”
Keba Baldwin, the transportation director at Prince George’s County Public Schools, said the school district is short 200 bus drivers and delays in school arrival times can be attributed to current drivers doing back-to-back routes to fill in for the vacant positions to parents at a school board meeting last month. The school district has more than 1,000 bus routes to cover.
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The school district told News 4 they are modifying bus routes to ensure students are able to arrive at school on time.
