Thứ Ba, 1 tháng 9, 2015
Total travel time for it to and from Wheels on the bus go round and round: about some hours.
"The first day I traveled to school, I was like, do I actually want to do this? " Freeman, 18, said. But the ride quickly became routine, and now Freeman doesn't hesitate to shoot down the notion of trading the two-hour vacation to the science and technology magnet school with the 10 minutes it would take him to get at his local high school.
It used to be that students with the longest bus rides were people that have rural addresses. Today, however, an increasing number of of the longest school bus commutes fit in with suburban students, willing to put in the time to be able to attend a prestigious magnet university.
"Oh, I think it's worth every penny, " said Freeman, a elderly at Thomas Jefferson. "I'm very happy at this school. It's some of those opportunities that comes to maybe a lucky few students. "
Sometimes the duration of the trips that students are able to endure even surprises adults.
"I'll inform you when I felt it -- on that rare occasion when kids miss the bus, and I'm taking them home. I'm considering, 'Wow, "' said Montgomery Blair Secondary school Principal Phillip Gainous. Long commutes have grown to be routine at the Silver Spring school, one of the largest in Montgomery and home to magnet programs in communications and research that lure students from throughout the county.
School officials across the region strain to keep regular, in-boundary school bus rides under an hour or so. But that has no bearing on magnet school commutes, which usually easily stretch longer. Students discover how to make the best of the item: One recent morning, a selection of Thomas Jefferson freshmen huddled around a small light clamped to a math textbook to examine for a test. Another scholar strummed a guitar. Still others dozed to music from their portable CD players.
Montgomery Blair once offered a buddy program that gave far-flung students safe places to keep if the roads were tied up with bad weather or injuries. But the program died from lack of use, Gainous stated. "We don't do that nowadays, because the kids are so used to traveling or waiting with the school, " he said. "They simply just sleep or do their groundwork. "
Grace Chung, a 15-year-old Thomas Jefferson sophomore, tries to squeeze using some study time on the coach. But she's seen far much more intricate maneuvers: A friend once made a complete poster for spirit week, including glitter, during the commute to help school.
"She had her glue as well as her glitter. She would pour it from the glue and then pour it the government financial aid the jar -- I don't think she spilled a single section of glitter, " she said.
Grace's starting school is Chantilly. Like just about any traffic-hardened veteran, she separates the girl commuting time into "good traffic days" and "bad traffic days. "
"Sometimes if traffic is absolutely good, we get there with 8 a. m., " an outing of about a half-hour, Leeway said. "And sometimes we make it right before the bell rings" from 8: 30. On a recent icy morning that spawned a multitude of car accidents and backups, Grace made it to school at 9: 35.
She sees the positives. "You make plenty of friends on the bus. I can take homework that I don't understand how to do and say, 'Here, guide me. ' There's some math whizzes on the bus. It's like study lounge. "
In Prince William Nation, 18-year-old Alan Hogan's hour-long bus ride is similar to those of old: No magnets school, he just lives within the rural, western part of the actual county. The stars are still bright when Hogan gets for the bus each morning. He attends Stonewall Jackson High school, near Manassas. Prince William is building a high school for western-area individuals, but it won't open until finally 2004.
Until then, the kids just get accustomed to the journey.
