2 Senior Classes Find Taking the Bus to Be a Decidedly Uneven Pleasure

San Marcos High School in San Marcos ordered seven buses to take graduating seniors to Disneyland for an all-night party Thursday night.

San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara ordered 10 buses to take graduating seniors to Disneyland for an all-night party Thursday night.

Seventeen buses--10 more than requested--showed up Thursday night at San Marcos High School in San Marcos.

Guess how many buses showed up at San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara?

Right.

Geographical Blunder

Ooooops, says Greyhound Lines, which on Friday learned there are two San Marcos high schools in California, separated by a couple hundred miles.

That’s been a confusing point for the two schools for years. One school gets the other school’s wrestling mats; the other school gets the one school’s graduation announcements. The two principals regularly swap mail.

And so it went Thursday night, with 400 exuberant seniors in Santa Barbara all dressed up but no way to go, and 370 graduating seniors in San Marcos with more buses than they knew what to do with.

Which gets us to one of those math problems kids just hate: If there are 17 buses heading north toward Disneyland at 55 m.p.h., and none heading south, where do they meet?

At the complaint desk of Greyhound in Dallas.

“We’ve apologized, said we were embarrassed and sorry,” said Greyhound public relations director George Gravley on Friday.

The 10 buses that were supposed to show up Thursday night were rescheduled for Friday night. And guess who’s popping for breakfast for the kids on the return trip this morning.

The Mail Gets Through

Gravley said the mix-up was, well, sort of explainable. When San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara contracted for the 10 buses, Greyhound sent a confirmation--to the appropriate street address in Santa Barbara, and the appropriate ZIP code, but to the wrong city--San Marcos. Still, the confirmation letter arrived at the proper San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara.

No one at the high school noticed the wrong city in the mailing address. Heck, everything else was OK: the right time, the right date--right down to picking the kids up in front of the gym. There were some abbreviations that no one quite understood--like “I-5/s78” but, hey, those must be computer codes or something. Whoever would have thought that meant, Interstate 5 south to California 78--to San Marcos?

Meanwhile, at San Marcos High School in North San Diego County, a different bus company--Goodall--was hired to provide seven buses.

On Thursday night in San Marcos, 10 Greyhound buses showed up first--indeed, a couple of hours early. The drivers explained that they were surely at the right high school, and perhaps Goodall was overbooked and had asked for Greyhound assistance.

Put on the Brakes

The kids were loaded up and the buses were heading out of the parking lot at 9:25--five minutes ahead of schedule--when the seven Goodall buses showed up. Whoa, hold everything! said Principal Marv Glusac.

The Goodall drivers looked at the Greyhound drivers. And the Greyhound drivers said, hey, no problem, we’ve got this load and Disneyland, here we come!

The Goodall drivers shrugged and went home, empty.

In Santa Barbara, meanwhile, the kids had been cooling their heels for two hours, looking for any buses. At 9:15 p.m., they were sent home.

“Some were upset, but most of them handled it maturely,” said Assistant Principal Jaime Castellanos.

Arrangements were made to reschedule for Friday night.

“And they’ve called us back twice today to make sure they’ve got the directions straight,” Castellanos said Friday.