Total travel time for it to and from Wheels on the bus go round and round: about some hours.
"The first day I went along to school, I was like, do I genuinely wish to do this? " Freeman, 18, said. But the ride rapidly became routine, and now Freeman doesn't hesitate to shoot down the notion of trading the two-hour trip to the science and technology magnet school for the 10 minutes it would take him to access his local high school.
It was once that students with the longest bus rides were individuals with rural addresses. Today, however, increasingly more of the longest school bus commutes belong to suburban students, willing to put in the time so that you can 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 a type of opportunities that comes to maybe a lucky few students. "
Sometimes the capacity of the trips that students are willing to endure even surprises adults.
"I'll tell you when I felt it -- in that rare occasion when little ones miss the bus, and Now i'm taking them home. I'm contemplating, 'Wow, "' said Montgomery Blair Senior high school Principal Phillip Gainous. Long commutes have grown to be routine at the Silver Spring school, one of the largest within Montgomery and home to magnet programs in communications and technology that lure students from throughout the county.
School officials across the region strain to keep regular, in-boundary school bus rides under an hour. But that has no bearing on magnet school commutes, that easily stretch longer. Students figure out how to make the best of that: One recent morning, a gang of Thomas Jefferson freshmen huddled around a tiny light clamped to a math textbook to examine for a test. Another pupil 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 remain if the roads were tied up with bad weather or incidents. But the program died from lack of use, Gainous explained. "We don't do that ever again, because the kids are very much accustomed to traveling or waiting on the school, " he said. "They only sleep or do their homework. "
Grace Chung, a 15-year-old Thomas Jefferson sophomore, tries to squeeze in a few study time on the bus. But she's seen far much more intricate maneuvers: A friend once made a complete poster for spirit week, full of glitter, during the commute to be able to school.
"She had her glue in addition to her glitter. She would pour it from the glue and then pour it in the jar -- I don't think she spilled a single bit of glitter, " she said.
Grace's basic school is Chantilly. Like almost any traffic-hardened veteran, she separates the girl commuting time into "good targeted visitors days" and "bad traffic nights. "
"Sometimes if traffic is very good, we get there with 8 a. m., " vacation of about a half-hour, Elegance said. "And sometimes we make it right before the bell rings" in 8: 30. On a recent icy morning that spawned lots of car accidents and backups, Grace managed to get to school at 9: 40.
She sees the positives. "You make plenty of friends on the bus. I can take homework that I don't learn how to do and say, 'Here, help me. ' There's some math whizzes within the bus. It's like study area. "
In Prince William Local, 18-year-old Alan Hogan's hour-long bus ride is similar to those of old: No magnet school, he just lives in the rural, western part of the county. The stars are still bright when Hogan gets around the bus each morning. He attends Stonewall Jackson Secondary school, near Manassas. Prince William is constructing a high school for western-area students, but it won't open till 2004.
Until then, the kids just get used to the journey.
