Transportation
The WCPS Transportation Department oversees an efficient pupil transportation operation with one of the lowest per-pupil costs in the state. Our responsibilities include coordinating bus routes and schedules, managing contracts with private bus owners, maintaining county-owned buses, and operating a dedicated maintenance facility. Additionally, we provide essential transportation cost estimates for various school system programs.
Transportation by the numbers:
- Buses travel more than 17,330 miles each day
- Each day, approximately 110 county-owned buses and almost 70 contract buses begin routes from various locations
- Buses transport approximately 19,000 students twice each day
- The transportation department employs approximately 300 certified regular route drivers and substitute drivers
- Washington County has 458 square miles of terrain, with 28 miles between the eastern and western borders and 18 miles between the northern and southern borders
Other transportation department objectives:
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Conduct school bus driver and assistant pre-service and in-service training.
- Serve as a liaison with the local police and the county and traffic/highway safety offices.
- Report and review all school bus accidents and determine preventability.
- Plan and provide approved bus stops and loading and unloading areas at schools.
- Assist schools in enforcing rules governing pupil behavior on school buses.
- Provide an effective school bus preventative maintenance program as well as a repair facility program.
- Maintain a certified group of substitute drivers and assistants for all county buses.
- Provide transportation for students attending the alternative programs.
- Provide transportation for schools providing after school homework programs.
- Provide transportation for schools providing summer school programs.
- Maintain a fleet of vehicles used by WCPS staff to visit schools and attend workshops and/or meetings.
- Provide analysis of necessary adjustments to school beginning and closing times to maintain cost effective bus transportation.
- Evaluates road conditions relative to inclement weather situations.