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

It was once that students with the longest bus rides were include those with rural addresses. Today, however, increasingly more of the longest school bus commutes are part of suburban students, willing to put in the time so that you can attend a prestigious magnet institution.

"Oh, I think it's worth every penny, " said Freeman, a senior at Thomas Jefferson. "I'm very happy at this school. It's among those opportunities that comes to maybe a lucky few students. "

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

"I'll inform you when I felt it -- on that rare occasion when children miss the bus, and Now i am taking them home. I'm thinking, 'Wow, "' said Montgomery Blair High school graduation Principal Phillip Gainous. Long commutes have grown to be routine at the Silver Spring high school graduation, one of the largest with Montgomery and home to magnet programs in communications and research that lure students from along the county.



School officials across the region strain to keep regular, in-boundary school bus rides under a couple of hours. But that has no bearing on magnet school commutes, that easily stretch longer. Students learn how to make the best of the idea: One recent morning, a selection of Thomas Jefferson freshmen huddled around a tiny light clamped to a math textbook to check for a test. Another college student strummed a guitar. Still others dozed to music off their portable CD players.

Montgomery Blair once offered a friend 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 out from lack of use, Gainous said. "We don't do that ever again, because the kids are very much accustomed to traveling or waiting in the school, " he said. "They only sleep or do their homework. "

Grace Chung, a 15-year-old Thomas Jefferson sophomore, tries to squeeze in certain study time on the coach. But she's seen far additional intricate maneuvers: A friend once made an entire poster for spirit week, filled with glitter, during the commute to school.

"She had her glue as well as her glitter. She would pour it from the glue and then pour it back the jar -- I don't think she spilled a single part of glitter, " she said.

Grace's starting school is Chantilly. Like virtually any traffic-hardened veteran, she separates the woman commuting time into "good targeted visitors days" and "bad traffic days. "

"Sometimes if traffic is actually good, we get there on 8 a. m., " a trip of about a half-hour, Leeway 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 made it to school at 9: thirty.

She sees the positives. "You make lots of friends on the bus. I can take homework that I don't understand how to do and say, 'Here, aid me. ' There's some math whizzes around the bus. It's like study hall. "

In Prince William Region, 18-year-old Alan Hogan's hour-long bus ride is more like those of old: No magnet school, he just lives inside rural, western part of the particular county. The stars are still bright when Hogan gets about the bus each morning. He attends Stonewall Jackson School, near Manassas. Prince William is building a high school for western-area learners, but it won't open until eventually 2004.

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