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Our school district provides free school bus transportation for elementary school students who live a mile or more away from school and for middle school students who live 1.5 miles or more away from school.
Up until this summer, high school students in our district were provided free city youth bus passes so that they could ride the city buses to school at no cost to families.
Due to budget issues, they've just let us know that they are doing away with that program and from this point forward it will cost $24/month for a youth pass for high school students should they continue to ride the city buses to school.
Public schools providing public transportation to school is always something I guess I have taken for granted, or assumed was always going to be provided.
I am curious now - what is it like in other districts, in other cities and states? Do parents pay for the school bus? Do the high schools in your district provide transportation? Do the city buses offer free rides to public schools for students?
I feel sad for families who have more than one student who depend on riding the city buses to and from school. Can you imagine having more than one bus rider in your family? The $24/month adds up quick. Doesn't sound like much, really, but times are very hard for a lot of families in the city where we live. I worry for them. That's almost $300/year per student.
Last edited by haggardhouseelf; 06-21-2011 at 05:37 PM..
Reason: I wasn't sure whether to put this in parenting or education?
our district started charging $.50 per ride last year. Yes, it sucks, but I guess I'd rather do that than have cuts in the classroom. I pay for it for the convenience. It is worth it not to have to deal with traffic at the school. It's more environmentally friendly too.
By law, I believe districts only have to provide transportation to special education students (the ones who cannot ride the regular bus.) In our area, students outside 1.5 miles are provided busing and others walk or are driven by parents. For next year because of budget cuts they are reducing busing offered, consolidating routes and adjusting start times in order to make things more efficient.
While I understand it stinks and is an extra expense, if there's just not enough money for everything, something has to get cut or a fee has to be charged to keep it. Districts across the country are strapped for cash and with the cost of gas going up, that's a huge expense.
We're really lucky in my region. All bus service is provided by the school districts free of charge (via taxes of course) for students of all ages. (There is one exception in our greater metro region, one small affluent school district doesn't even have buses. The reason is most students can walk and most students have SAHM's who can drive them.) Don't know.) Our districts are very large. This 1.5 mile limit is foreign to me. Many students live over 10 miles away. All get the same free bus service, even students who lives within 1 mile of the school can catch a bus if they chose. Distance doesn't dictate safety. We're not a sidewalk type region.
Pennsylvania has a super cool state law. If a district provides transportation to students, the district is required by law to provide transporation to students who attend private schools that are located 10 miles from the district borders. That means that a private school student could be transported over 20 miles each way, and many districts waive the distance restriction because many of the top private schools aren't within 10 miles of the borders of other schools.
I only learned a few years ago that there are people who live in other states who either don't have bus service or have to pay for it. That's shocking to me, especially districts that don't provide any buses whatsoever. It makes me wonder how parents manage to work if they have to drive their children to school. We don't have to pay for books either. That's another thing that blows my mind. My girlfriend who lives in Maryland has to pay for bus service and books for her children. I thought education was supposed to be free in the United States.
Keep in mind, property taxes are high in Pennsylvania compared to states with failing education systems. They don't cut budgets here. They just raise taxes. A school district wouldn't dare to cut or charge for buses. Property values would drop in one district if it were the only district to stop busing. People would stop buying houses there. They'd chose to buy houses in the districts that provide buses. That small wealthy district is an exception to the rule. It's a very small school district where all students are close enough to walk and has mostly SAHMs. Middle class districts would lose lots of tax money if they dropped school buses because taxes would fall when property values drop as a result of people not wanting to buy in the district.
This is one reason I oppose switching to a county school system. A county school system could result in something like buses being dropped and the school district wouldn't fear falling property values.
Our district does free bus for all students (even the ones who live next door to the school). They do Overbook the bus, and each bus area zone has a backup/standby bus incase any of the bus fill up on the routes (or break down, or have some other issue). A 55 Pass ES bus will have about 80 'scheduled' to be on it. MS will have about 70 on it, HS will have about 100 scheduled on it.
They do watch how many are getting on/off and do adjust the routes so they dont need to call in the backup bus to often.
Our districts are very large. This 1.5 mile limit is foreign to me. Many students live over 10 miles away. All get the same free bus service.
It is common in some areas that students who live close to the school are not provided bus service because they are expected to walk or bike to school. Some districts set that limit at 1 mile (as in they will provide bus service for anyone who lives more than a mile from their assigned school) and others set it at 1.5 miles. Sometimes exceptions are made if students in a particular neighborhood would have to walk a dangerous route to get to school like walk along a busy street that doesn't have sidewalks. If you choose to go to private school or choose to ask for a transfer to a public school other than your home school, you are generally responsible for figuring out your own transportation.
NJ has the 1mile for ES & MS 1.5mile for HS in state law, When I was in HS in NJ, I didn't get bus to school, my house was 1.4 miles from school. The House next door was 1.5 they got a bus to HS. (The town paid for us to take the bus routes because they did not want to put in sidewalks that would be required for us to walk to school on a busy state highway).
We had to pay to ride city buses in middle and high when I was in school, but the same district now provides free yellow bus transportation for all students who need to ride a bus.
Where we live not the radius is much less than a mile. Only 3 streets are aloud to walk to my sons school, and some schools don't allow any students to walk.
I'm pretty sure the reason our bus was not axed when the others were is because we have a main 4-lane street between us and the school. Most of the others don't. I just checked google maps. We live .8 miles from the school.
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