A Marietta mother's daughter has been late to first-period geometry 10 days straight, and she's not the only Cobb County parent watching the school bus problem stretch from a first-day glitch into a chronic pattern.

Brynne Komonchak told 11Alive on Saturday, Aug. 15, that her daughter, a magnet student at Pebblebrook High School in Mableton, was late every single school day during the first two weeks of classes. Both of Komonchak's high schoolers have experienced delays and are arriving home much later than expected.

"It is a big deal if they're missing instructional time," Komonchak told the station.

The problems extend beyond one family. Parents in Cobb County Facebook groups have reported delayed buses, overcrowded routes and crashes or inaccurate tracking from the district's new Edulog Parent Portal app. The district replaced its previous tracking system with Edulog over the summer, installing GPS tablets on more than 1,000 buses before the Aug. 4 first day of school.

As we reported Aug. 5, the app went dark on opening day. One parent documented a bus arriving more than 90 minutes after its scheduled pickup. Two weeks later, families say the tracker still isn't reliable.

District says routes will 'settle'

Cobb County School District declined 11Alive's interview request but provided a written statement. A district spokesperson said the first weeks of school are "always a time of adjustment" as routes are fine-tuned based on actual ridership and traffic, and that the Edulog app "is working."

The statement offered no specific fix date. It said families "should see more consistent arrival times" over "the next several days."

Komonchak said her daughter's tardiness continued through the end of the second week, even after the district issued that statement.

Paul McKinney, who became the district's director of transportation in June, had not commented publicly on either the bus delays or the app failures as of Aug. 5. The district has directed parents with bus concerns to contact their assigned field coordinator or the Transportation Department.

What's next

The Cobb County Board of Education is scheduled to meet Thursday, Aug. 20, in its first session since the school year opened. The bus delays and Edulog failures remain unresolved heading into that meeting.

Roughly 72,000 students across the district's 112 schools ride the bus daily.