Total travel time and energy to and from Wheels on the bus go round and round: about a number of hours.



"The first day I traveled to school, I was like, do I really want to do this? " Freeman, 20, said. But the ride quickly became routine, and now Freeman doesn't hesitate to shoot down the notion of trading the two-hour day at the science and technology magnet school with the 10 minutes it would take him so that his local high school.

It had been that students with the longest bus rides were those with rural addresses. Today, however, a growing number of of the longest school bus commutes are part of suburban students, willing to put in the time to be able to attend a prestigious magnet college.

"Oh, I think it's worthwhile, " said Freeman, a older at Thomas Jefferson. "I'm very happy at this school. It's one of those opportunities that comes to maybe a lucky few students. "

Sometimes along the trips that students are going to endure even surprises adults.

"I'll inform you when I felt it -- in that rare occasion when little ones miss the bus, and I'm taking them home. I'm pondering, 'Wow, "' said Montgomery Blair Senior high school Principal Phillip Gainous. Long commutes are getting to be routine at the Silver Spring secondary school, one of the largest with Montgomery and home to magnet programs in communications and science that lure students from over the county.



School officials across the region strain to keep regular, in-boundary school bus rides under one hour. But that has no showing on magnet school commutes, that easily stretch longer. Students learn how to make the best of the item: One recent morning, a gang of Thomas Jefferson freshmen huddled around a small light clamped to a math textbook to check for a test. Another university student strummed a guitar. Still others dozed to music using their portable CD players.

Montgomery Blair once offered a pal program that gave far-flung students safe places to stay if the roads were tied up with bad weather or incidents. But the program died from lack of use, Gainous mentioned. "We don't do that any longer, because the kids are accustomed to traveling or waiting at the school, " he said. "They simply just sleep or do their preparation. "

Grace Chung, a 15-year-old Thomas Jefferson sophomore, tries to squeeze in certain study time on the shuttle. But she's seen far a lot more intricate maneuvers: A friend once made a full poster for spirit week, detailed with glitter, during the commute for you to school.

"She had her glue along with her glitter. She would pour it out on the glue and then pour it back the jar -- I don't think she spilled a single little bit of glitter, " she said.

Grace's basic school is Chantilly. Like just about any traffic-hardened veteran, she separates the woman commuting time into "good visitors days" and "bad traffic nights. "

"Sometimes if traffic is actually good, we get there on 8 a. m., " an outing of about a half-hour, Acceptance said. "And sometimes we reach one's destination right before the bell rings" on 8: 30. On a recent icy morning that spawned dozens of car accidents and backups, Grace made it to school at 9: 30.

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, assist me. ' There's some math whizzes about the bus. It's like study lounge. "

In Prince William State, 18-year-old Alan Hogan's hour-long bus ride is similar to those of old: No magnetic field school, he just lives within the rural, western part of your county. The stars are still bright when Hogan gets within the bus each morning. He attends Stonewall Jackson Senior high school, near Manassas. Prince William is developing a high school for western-area pupils, but it won't open till 2004.

Until then, the kids just get used to the journey.