Cutting school bus service better than laying off teachers

Published 7:30 am Monday, March 21, 2011

Last week Dalton Public Schools officials said they are looking at the possibility of cutting school bus service to help balance the budget and avoid laying off any more teachers.

The school system needs to trim $4 million to $5 million from a $56.7 million budget. Instead of looking at additional cuts to personnel, officials are considering how to reduce spending in other areas and transportation may be one where cuts can be made.

There is no law that requires school systems to provide transportation for all students. Indeed, Dalton schools did not provide bus service until about 30 years ago.

The school system has already saved $600,000 by cutting off bus service to students who live within one-half mile of their school.

Superintendent Jim Hawkins has suggested other scenarios, such as ending the service completely, cutting service to those living within one-and-a-half miles of their school or eliminating bus service at the high school level.

There are other ways to cut back transportation costs, such as streamlining underused routes, but the schools’ transportation department looks at that measure every year.

Other possibilities include gathering spots in a neighborhood where students could congregate to eliminate multiple bus stops.

Parents could volunteer to be crossing guards near such “pods” to ensure students’ safety in the mornings and afternoons. Indeed, students who live close enough to a school to walk the route should travel in groups with adults not too far away at intersections.

Of course this would require more parental involvement, but when times are tough like they are now parents should be willing to pitch in.

For students old enough to drive, carpooling should be encouraged.

Dalton is not the only school system mulling transportation cuts.

In Gainesville, Fla., no student within two miles of a school is getting bus service for the second year in a row, according to the Scripps Howard News Service.

In Memphis, where 40 percent of the routes have been cut, the school system increased distances between bus stops and curbed bus access to older students who live within two miles of school. The cuts are expected to save Memphis City Schools $6.5 million a year.

In Andover, Kan., just outside Wichita, families are forking over $100 per student this year for the privilege of riding the bus, the best solution a panel of community leaders could think of to cover holes in the school budget, according to Scripps Howard.

Cutting back bus service will not be popular among the many who have grown used to it. And there are some who live too far from a school to take advantage of any alternative, and some parents cannot afford to leave their job in the afternoon to pick up their child.

And in these hard economic times, paying to ride may be too much of a hardship for many, but a sliding scale of payment could be arranged along the lines of reduced school lunch programs.

But the reality is that knocking down bus costs is a better way to balance the budget than laying off more teachers.

School Board Chairman Steve Williams said at the board’s meeting last week, “If we can avoid laying people off by doing some other things, then I think that’s a positive.”

We agree.