Taking the Guesswork Out of Waiting

The well-orchestrated ballet of school mornings at the Markwell house would be familiar to parents anywhere: rushed bowls of cereal, last-minute hair-brushing, hurried kisses goodbye.

After hugging their mother Michele one last time, the younger Markwells – Olivia, 9 and twins Isabel and Luke, 8 – head out the door with their father, Joel, for the short walk to the corner bus stop.

Each morning, Bus 817 and its well-loved driver “Mr. Q” picks them up for another day of school at , and later that day drops them off in the same place.

Watching the big yellow school bus pull up to the curb, with its noisy engine, familiar red stop sign extended, and wheezy door hinges, you think it’s a scene that, in most ways, hasn’t changed in decades.

Until you follow Joel Markwell, as I had the chance to do, one morning before school ended for the summer.

After exchanging pleasantries with Mr. Q, hugging each child once more and seeing them safely on to the bus, he pulled out his smart phone to dash off a tweet to the rest of the parents on the route, so they would know Bus 817 was on its way.

While the parents of Springdale Park Elementary – the Ponce de Leon Avenue school that just ended its second year – were already keeping each other in the loop about schedules with email and text messages, Markwell made his route even more high-tech.

A systems engineer who works out of his Ponce de Leon Terrace home, Markwell gave his route a Twitter feed, an independent website and a personality all its own.

Naturally, he made sure the website had tons of useful details about the 475-student school and buses in general. He also created a photo gallery of Bus 817’s personable driver so students could “meet” him before school even started, added a cartoon version of the bus itself and made an interactive map of the 3.7-mile route, so parents could see where it would stop when.

“I also email parents, as all bus captains do, about news and updates,” Markwell said. “I didn’t get involved in the first year – I was just the parent who made sure kids got on the bus.”

Mary Stouffer is the parent who created Springdale Park’s bus captain system.

Last year, in fact, the busy mom oversaw all seven routes herself with emails and texts.

With the help of parent volunteers like Markwell – who she says has gone “above and beyond” in his efforts – this year, she’s been able to narrow that down to just one.

Because most of the students who could walk to Springdale would have to cross busy intersections on Briarcliff or Ponce, the new school was classified as a “zero walk zone,” Stouffer said, so even students who live close by could be eligible for bus service.

Not all schools using Atlanta Public School buses have bus captains, Stouffer said. But having seen how well the volunteer liaison system works in other schools, she knew it could make a difference at Springdale.

Basically, bus captains act as point persons for the school and parents, she said – adding one more point of interaction.

When friends in other cities hear about the ways Markwell has used social media to bring his bus route grapevine to the cutting edge, say parents Pierce Pape and Karri Hobson-Pape, they’re jealous.

“Joel’s Twitter system has helped us never miss the bus,” said Pape in an email. “We stay dry in rainy weather as we hover in the living room until we get the text and then scurry out to the bus stop.  In April, there was a security lock-down and the bus driver, Mr. Q, let us all know as soon as he pulled out of the school with the children and put all of our fears to rest.  It’s been a great tool.”   

Although Stouffer says she doesn’t envision trading in emails and texts for Twitter, which many of the parents on her route don’t use, a website for her route might be a different story.

“I think his is extremely helpful,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind if he’d do one for my route.”