Our school district now charges for bus rides to school.

[Lara in Colo]

$.50 each way per child. The district is year round and I (would have had ) 4 children enrolled. This comes to about $60.00 a month, year-round. I can buy my whole year's curric. for that!!!!

 

Lara

[Jean in Newcastle]

You can buy all your books for $60? :scared: (this smiley says "scared" but he's really surprised)

[JudoMom]

You can buy all your books for $60? :scared: (this smiley says "scared" but he's really surprised)

 

It would be $720 a year :).

[Jean in Newcastle]

It would be $720 a year :).

 

:blush: Oh - I read it that the monthly bus charge was what she spent on one year's worth of curriculum. . . Now I get it!

[Nibo]

That is just crazy! Did they explain why?

[Nicole M]

This makes me sad. If it were safe to walk or ride bikes to and from schools, it might be okay. This will be hard for many families.

[Miss Peregrine]

Our district is the same way. It is $200/year.

[JudoMom]

That is just crazy! Did they explain why?

 

Here's a link. I think it's absurd.

[Lara in Colo]

The school district is broke. I don't know what exactly happened, this is one of the more affluent areas (not mine however). I don't know where all the money went. DD's old elem has 850 students--how are hey going to accommodate that many parents dropping off/picking up children??? I'm so glad we hs because we live at least 7 miles away, I'd hate to do that every day all year long!!!

 

Lara

Edited May 26, 2010 by Lara in Colo

[edithcrawley]

What about the families who live too far but can't afford the bus? How sad. I have heard of a bus charge but never that much.

 

The article says that any student who is on the free or reduced price lunch program won't have to pay. Also, any student who has an IEP that requires transport won't be charged. The families that will have problems will be the ones who aren't poor enough to get assistance, but are too poor to pay the fee.

[Ailaena]

I was reading about this the other day, but I thought they were only considerng it. As someone else said, it's *absurd*. As far as I'm concerned, making people pay for something the state requires them to do is poopy.

Plus, there was something somewhere about a $200,000ish cost to outfit each bus with tracking equipment. What about THAT expense?? And you mentioned traffic... Can you imagine THAT nightmare??

 

I won't even hijack this thread and rant about year-round school being a scam:glare:

[Desert Rat]

:001_smile:

:blush: Oh - I read it that the monthly bus charge was what she spent on one year's worth of curriculum. . . Now I get it!

[Desert Rat]

I'm surprised our school district hasn't thought of that one. They just shut down all community activities through middle schools and end safe-key programs for kids after school. Ugh.

[Jennifer in MI]

Wow. I'm surprised that they didn't cut other things first. I keep reading about music and art getting cut. (Or maybe they already did?)

 

Our area has small neighborhood schools. No busses. If I had a child in p.s., I'd prefer that!

[gingersmom]

If my kids were in public school they would be expected to walk 1.99999 miles to school (in the snow, the rain). The worst part is that part of the walk would have no sidewalks (so they would have to walk in the street), it would be heavy traffic and basically not safe.

 

So yes I would pay to bus my kids to school.

[FaithManor]

In defense of schools, though I am no fan at all of our local public schools, busing costs are huge and problematic. The average cost per child in our area is well more than $500.00 per student.

 

While bussing is convenient and many parents have come to rely on it, it is not the government's job to transport children. Plus, its dangerous. One adult driving 75-80 kids to school, trying to keep an eye on the road, trying to keep an eye out for the cars that won't stop when the flashers are on, trying to keep the bus on the road in bad weather, etc. can not then also supervise the culture of the bus. It is crazy and it isn't safe. The bullying alone is hazardous. The liability to the school district is astronomical.

 

In the last ten years, according to the federal Department of Education, transportation costs have risen 34.5% on average across the nation. Funding has not even begun to increase at that rate. Yes, there is an awful lot of waste in the public schools, but since it should be the responsibility of parents to get their children to school, then eliminating busing or seriously curtailing it, is definitely a place to begin.

 

Schools are also having a harder time getting good individuals to do the driving. The job only pays an average of $12.00 per hour and is part-time. Many districts had to start offering health insurance to the drivers in order to lure people to the job. That costs our local district $14,500.00 per driver/family per year. If 20 buses are run, the cost in just payroll and health insurance for the drivers is nearly a half million dollars. Now begin adding oil changes, bus maintenance, and barrels of diesel fuel to that and imagine how much more that is. Additionally, replacing a school bus costs a minimum of $70,000.00. Buses rarely get more than 6 miles to the gallon which makes them terribly inefficient. Oh, and the huge bus garage for doing all of the maintenance cost a million to build and then of course, it has to have repairs. Its mind-boggling.

 

We have one school district in our county that eliminated busing for one year because of the huge number of major repairs that needed to be made to the buildings. Their choice was to eliminate teaching positions, tutoring positions, and school librarians or busing. They made the correct choice. According to the teachers, it was the very best year they ever had! The school adjusted its start time to 7:30 a.m. allowing parents to drop their children off at 7:10. Teachers were in their rooms to meet the students and supervise them. The school day ended at 3:00 but the kids were given a one hour lunch/long recess. Children had to be picked up by 3:30 unless parents availed themselves a free tutoring service offered by volunteers. The tutoring lasted until 4:30. Since many children are getting on the bus at 6-6:30 a.m., even with the earlier start-time, many students were able to get more sleep. They also did not have to ride the bus home and then get started on school work. Some children in rural districts do not even get off the bus until 5:00 at night.

 

There was a lot of car pooling, a lot teens driving sibs to school, neighbors driving neighbor kids, etc. But, people made it work. Additionally, high school students could earn community volunteer credit (they had to have several character references, take a training course through the state police post, etc.) to be crossing guards and escorts for children within the town limits who would be walking and biking. The state police also made an effort to be running extra patrols during those hours. It did work out and it was better for the kids. However, most parents did not want to be inconvenienced with the transport issue and at the next election, new taxes were approved for the school district.

 

I know a lot of people are going to be against this kind of thing. But, I find myself very supportive of eliminating busing or having parents pay for the transportation.

 

Faith

[ScoutTN]

The school district here is going to sell the bus sides for advertising space to avoid having a high fee for the bus!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I know a lot of people are going to be against this kind of thing. But, I find myself very supportive of eliminating busing or having parents pay for the transportation.

 

Faith

 

:iagree: The district where my in-laws live had a school levy fail a couple decades ago, when dh was a kid and one of the things that they did was to cut bus service.

 

From the schools' point of view, cutting bus service is something that doesn't directly affect instruction quality (like laying off teachers, not buying consumable workbooks or not buying paper does), but it is very evident that a cut has been made. In other words, parents aren't able to just ignore the cut. For my in-laws' district, the levy passed on the next election.

 

When we were in Germany, there was no such thing as school buses. Students walked, rode their bikes (after passing a bike/traffic safety test from the school), rode public transportation or had transportation arranged by the parents. We used to use the library and do sports at one local school. At the end of the day, there would be a line of private transportation service minivans waiting to pick up kids and take them home. Kids were in a smaller vehicle and were dropped off right at home. The parents paid for the cost of the service.

[FaithManor]

Also, I neglected to say that many states are not mandated to provide busing. That's just always been assumed. There is no specific federal or state funding for this. Michigan does not mandate busing.

 

Michigan does require every bus to be annually inspected by the state police for safety violations. On Oct. 22, 2009, the state police informed the state school districts that its budget had been cut so much that they would no longer be able to provide this service for free. This means that the schools pay inspection fees now. The economy here is totally BROKEN!

 

Faith

[LibraryLover]

Ours did, and then it didn't.

 

It can change quickly.

[junepep]

My first thought was OMG that's absolutely insane, but then I remembered that sometimes Schools play fast and loose with parents.

 

When I was growing up (in NY) the school removed all extra curricular activities one year because their budget proposals weren't passed and another year eliminated busing for anyone within 5 miles of the school (which was actually about 2/3 of the community b/c it was a relatively small town & the school was centrally located) because it was too expensive.

 

Both of these things had one common denominator... the local community had refused the latest tax hike requested by the school system. There might be something similar going on here. The parents held out for about 2-3 mos both times before an "emergency ballot" was held and taxes were raised.

[Lara in Colo]

I sort of agree with the idea that parents are responsible to get their children to school, however, in this school, they do not have provisions for all the extra traffic. This school is year round, this is because the school saved money by not building an extra school. There are 6 tracks (4 when we started and they added 2 more) a,b,c,d,aa,bb. This rotates the children and classrooms. The track system is designed to hold 3 tracts at a time (three diff classes of each grade), now they have more tracks. This school is overflowing. They ALREADY have a traffic problem--now with the busses possibly taking less of the load, I worry about the congestion and children being let off 2-3 blocks away and having to navigate the traffic alone. I would drop off my children for afternoon Kindergarten and what a mess (just with the 3 morning and 3 afternoon Kinder classes trying to get in and out AND we were allowed to use the empty bus lane.) The district just started their own VA and I will have the littles enrolled with this for the next 2 years. I'm wondering if the VA will have a surge because of this.

 

Lara

[Melissa in FL]

 

I know a lot of people are going to be against this kind of thing. But, I find myself very supportive of eliminating busing or having parents pay for the transportation.

 

Faith

 

:iagree: It's been a nice luxury while the States and schools had the money but they just don't have it any more. I would rather them cut buses than other more necessary school expenses. I don't think charging for the bus is going to work. I think they will find most of the kids who could pay will be finding other transportation and the buses will be for kids who qualify for the free ride. I don't think a lot of people realize how expensive it is to run the bus service. You explained it well Faith!

Melissa

[MomLovesClassics]

Truthfully I am suprised that other states and districts have not started doing this. School budgets are suffering everwhere. In some areas it might create more traffic jams. Parents might protest against it, but will protesting do any good? I am shocked. I would not be suprised if other states started charging for books, and other things too.