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E-mail Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > June > 20 > Entry
High school busing on the chopping block again
With just seven weeks before Dayton schools resume classes there is no plan to maintain special bus service and routes for high school students, which could force up to 3,000 kids to get to school by paying their own way on regular city bus routes.
School, city, county and business leaders last year worried that dropping high school bus service could erode school attendance by making it harder and costlier for kids to get to school while also potentially creating headaches downtown, where most city bus routes go to allow passenger transfers.
““The implications really are that parents are going to have to find a way to get their kids to high schools,” Greater Dayton RTA Executive Director Mark Donaghy said. “We expect a great deal of that will happen on the RTA regular service.”
Just weeks before the start of the last school year, four partners joined the district to cover the $2 million cost of its RTA contract. The city provided $350,000, Montgomery County gave $350,000 and RTA reduced bus pass prices by $200,000. The county’s job and family services department added $500,000 in social services to free up district money for busing and the district contributed a $600,000 state subsidy it would not have gotten had it not offered high school busing.
None of the parties who stepped up to save high school busing service last summer has offered to make a contribution to keep busing for 2008-09.
“Our budget is tight, but everybody else has some struggles, too,” said Yvonne Isaacs, city school board president.
The district’s contract with the RTA provide free transportation for high school students and provides 39 extra buses on the road when school was in session. Many of those buses follow direct routes that pick kids up from their homes and take them right to school.
Still, Isaacs said she was still searching for a way to keep busing before the Aug. 11 start of school.
“This time last year we were in a similar situation,” she said. “My hope is, like last year, we will find a solution. But we know we have to move fast.”
Permalink | Comments (25) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Comments
By cal
July 1, 2008 7:23 AM | Link to this
Hey there MC-smart guy… I do think I know the answer. Why do you think I put a list of countries there? Someone stated that countries that outperform the US educationally do not have school choice. I provided a list of countries that I found to have school choice and wanted them to provide evidence to the contrary. So deal with it.
By Fed-Up
June 30, 2008 11:51 PM | Link to this
I agree with Charterschoolhater. Why does this Mary Manuel have so much power? What does she have on the District that allows her to get away with all that she does? I have heard from teacher’s aides that I know who say that she has controll over everything pertaining to teacher’s aides. (She’s the union president) and if she doesn’t like you she can make your life hell. They say she is the female Jimmy Hoffa, and the district lets her get away with everything. Why does she work all summer and why does she have a car provided by the district? Scott Elliot needs to investigate this. They say she has some position with the transportation department. What is it? I have seen this woman at the board meetings on tv, and she is way out of line. Why is everyting her business? They say she treats the teachers aides terribly, and all decisions made regarding them have to come through her. ( I have heard her on tv calling them “Her People”) Someone needs to call her on the carpet and put a stop to her BS right now!!! And how long has she been with the District? 100 years? She needs to go. What is her job anyway?
By MC
June 27, 2008 2:51 AM | Link to this
Cal, could be that no one responded because we are trying to deal with issues in the USA and researching educational practice in other countries is not our priority right now. Since you asked the question, why don’t you do the research and let us know the answer?
By roni
June 26, 2008 8:23 PM | Link to this
I went to elementary and high school with in walking distance of Parkside Homes where I grew up. The only kids that were bussed to school were those who rode the RTA and had parents who paid for them to ride the RTA along with the regular passengers at the regular bus stops. Also the students knew if they acted up in public or at school that they were in trouble when they got home. In 1972, bussing began with the high schools. I was attending Kiser when it was a high school. During the school year 1972-73, it was a mess every week going to school. Students from other schools would cause fights with the students from the home school. Bussing was a mess. Both of my daughters were bussed across town when they attended DPS. Not once did thet ever got to attend the same school. All of the schools that my oldest daughter attended were on the West side of town because they were handicapped assessible. My youngest daughter attended schools north and west of town. The only time my youngest daughter attended school on the west side was when she attended Residence Park and MacFarlane. When she attended high school she got a bus pass to ride the RTA to school.
By cal
June 25, 2008 10:05 AM | Link to this
I posted this back in April but no one responded. Since it was brought up that other countries that out perform US education do not have school choice I asked: By cal April 8, 2008 9:15 PM I�m not an expert but I think that there is school choice in Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, UK,Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. Could be wrong though. Is that true?
By Mary
June 25, 2008 7:42 AM | Link to this
And, oldprof, I sometimes resent educators of small minds and too much power who are suspended from poles at the top of their ivory towers like yapping puppets. Did it ever occur to you I have grounds as a parent to resent the ineptness of a compulsory education system that had poorly trained and poorly educated people and poorly designed curriculum for either of my children or me. I had to try to do their job while they collected the pay.
By Oldprof
June 24, 2008 5:44 PM | Link to this
Mum and Mary—I am beginning to resent the selfishness of the ‘school choice’ proponents. Why should society give you every little thing you want? If you are willing to put down the extra costs of a custom education, then fine. The nations that do better than the USA in tests of educational achievement do not provide school choice; they expect students to be responsible for learning in whatever circumstance they provide. We need to quit allowing uninformed parents to run away from imagined problems into schools that are neither successful nor stable.
By Oldprof
June 24, 2008 5:36 PM | Link to this
Dave, the busing programs of the 1970s were a well-intentioned but failed attempt to reduce racism through integration; yes, neighborhood schools were part of the problem, but since white flight and sprawl has become the status quo, we could only achieve racial balance by busing students among different districts. Watch the residents of Oakwood and Centerville torch the legislature if THAT proposal comes up in committee!
By Dave
June 24, 2008 10:18 AM | Link to this
Refresh my memory: Wasn’t it neighborhood schools (in a rather segregated city) that got DPS into such a mess with federal intervention and bussing back in the early 70’s?
By Mary
June 24, 2008 9:46 AM | Link to this
I agree with “btlsmum” that the absence of choice is not good. I drove my son by his and my “choice” to college classes every day when he was 14 and 15. When he turned 16 he drove himself. This was a lot of gas money to various colleges in the area, including Springfield. The PSEO law allows for those cases where the parents cannot afford transportation or lodging. Some students really need choices whether it is PSEO or charter. In the meanwhile, tax dollars were being used to bus other students to sporting events after school and on the weekends. How we fund things using tax dollars does not always make sense. Maybe we should have insisted on being reimbursed because of compulsory education, and a lack of acceptable or appropriate educational services.
By deb
June 23, 2008 9:43 PM | Link to this
John Hustead’s name keeps coming up as an enemy to the public schools - especially to Dayton…and the worst part is I can’t vote him out of office because he’s not from my district!!! I wish Dayton would really go back to the true neighborhood school setup or as suggested - parents transport their kids…Parent’s possibly could even be more involved with their child’s education…Might be a novel concept for some….
By charterschoolhater
June 23, 2008 7:37 PM | Link to this
Hey Calvin. Thanks for calling the Human Services Contribution to Dayton’s busing as well. I am ashamed that I voted for the human services levy. If they have enough money to pay to bus Dayton’s kids, how about paying to bus West Carrollton, and Northridge kids. These two school districts have to pay the state back a chunk of money. Isaacs and company just do not get. we need austerity in the schools. They are broke. As I said before, the budget needs to be cut to the bare bone. Maybe the new interim superintendent will bring us needed change.
By btlsmum
June 23, 2008 4:58 PM | Link to this
I think it’s entirely reasonable to expect parents to make their own arrangements if they choose not to utilize a neighborhood school. I would just resent the absence of such a choice.
By Rick
June 23, 2008 4:28 PM | Link to this
It’s not an either or proposition, school choice and transportation. What is required by law is that school systems provide transportation to private and charter students the same as they do for student in regular system. For instance, if Dayton dropped busing high school students it would not have to bus any students. Parents would still be free to transport their kids to any school of their choosing.
By calvin
June 22, 2008 11:46 AM | Link to this
charterschoolhater missed the $500,000 the Job and Family services paid (out of the increasing Human Services levy?) to the school district.
By dirk sniggler
June 22, 2008 10:33 AM | Link to this
The only “school choice” that kids and parents need, is the choice to get up in the morning, and attend a good school down the street within’ walking or bicycling distance. School choice has created a behemoth labyrinth of routes that must be covered. Any child, anywhere in the city (and Dayton is a pretty large city geographically) can choose to attend any one of over 70 + schools that are located all over the city. Think of that for a second folks. Just imagine what a gigantic waste of precious and FINITE resources our leaders have created through the creation of this system. John Husted should be hiding in a cave now considering what he has done. And with diesel up near $5 a gallon, and no end in sight to the cost increases (lots of folks predicting $10 within 2 years), the following is surely now true: ANYONE on the school board who is not SCREAMING at the top of their lungs about this systemic and historic waste of our finite resources is not a leader, but rather, a traitor to our community who is out to destroy our institutions through willful or ignorant neglect.
By Concerned Mom of 3
June 21, 2008 11:57 PM | Link to this
I am in favor of moving toward making neighborhood schools manditory… (even though my children no longer attend their neighborhood schools.) If somebody desires another choice- then they opt to provide their own transportation. Period. Short, simple, cost effective. On another note… DPS- Don’t do it at the 11th hour! Give the people a reasonable amount of time to make plans. Give people a choice- either go to the neighborhood school, or step up to the plate for your child and work out the transportation on your own. Quit expecting the district do it for you. A budget crisis is a perfectly good reason to push the issue of going to neighborhood schools.
By teachermom
June 21, 2008 3:29 PM | Link to this
I really think that kids need to be going to their neighborhood schools. We have terrible problems with people not coming to pick up their kids who are bussed from across town. Parents, when your kids miss the bus, are running fevers, vomiting, or just can’t behave you need to come and get them. There are too many excuses: we don’t have a car, we don’t have cab fare, we don’t have any gas in our car. Neighborhood schools would eliminate this problem. Plus there would be less of an excuse to come to CONFERENCES, intervention meetings, IEP meetings, and school functions such as awards assemblies. I have no idea WHY DPS lets this go on. It’s such a huge WASTE of money !! Scott, I would also like to know if DPS has considered going to a 4 day school week. What do you know about this ? I know it is going on in other school districts and has been proven to be very cost-effective.
By calvin
June 21, 2008 11:55 AM | Link to this
Dayton needs to find its own solution this year. The county residents should not be kicking in $850,000 for subsidize the schools, along with the RTA subsidies and sales tax going to Dayton bus costs. The county taxpayers have their own schools to support and we don’t get as many dollars per student as DPS.
By btlsmum
June 21, 2008 11:37 AM | Link to this
“I think families would appreciate their child going to a closer school as well.” As a reluctant DPS parent I can say that I would not appreciate being forced into a neighborhood school. One of the saving graces of DPS is choice within the system, IMO. *not to stray off topic, sorry
By Oldprof
June 21, 2008 12:26 AM | Link to this
This, good people, is the offspring of the “parental choice” fable. DPS is responsible for delivering children to all the charter schools, plus certain privates, as well as to the pick-n-choose system of its own K-12 buildings. If we require children to attend at minimum the nearest elementary and middle schools—and excuse the public system from propping up the reprehensible “school choice” movement that’s failed—then we save hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars from fuel and have enough in reserve to restore proper levels of faculty and academic support.
By charterschoolhater
June 20, 2008 11:02 PM | Link to this
We are cutting recreation services to the cities youth, but they can pay $350,000 to bus DAyton Public School kids?, Montgomery County gave $350,000 of taxpayer monye that belonmged to peolpe from other cities and RTA reduced bus pass prices by $200,000 using other people’s money too. THye better not pay for DAyton’s busing. It think it is really bild of Issac to ask that other people pay to bus Dayton’s children again. Dayton absolutely refuses to live in an austere budget. I say cut the administration to the bare bones. One supervisor per department and one principal per school. While we are at it MAry Manuel’s parent job is not needed either. The transportation department has 6 supervisors including th director 3 dispatchers who work all summer when very little busing goes on. 3 routers who work all year round as well. How abou cutting some of that fat. They also have a teachers aide,(Mary Manuel) who does not aide in the classroom, and works all summer when there is no school. Wonder how much ol Mary gave up in paraprofessional contract negotiations to get that cushy job. She also as previously mentioned has a car. ALl this fay and Dayton wants others to foot it;s busing bill? Hey Issacs cut some of this fat and maybe you can ask for some help. I don’t feel sorry for folks who refuse to make the cuts needed to run in a deficit. OF course we would rather make kids walk to school all the while employing loads of supervisors we do not need and a teachers aide who do not work as a teachers aide. But make the kids walk. Isn’t a school about kids? I guess it is about how much money you can waste. NO NO NO ON THE LEVY!!
By Mary
June 20, 2008 8:50 PM | Link to this
Cutting busing to school, (but never to sporting events), is the number one tactic of school boards after a levy defeat to try to manipulate the public into passing a levy.
By No. Not again
June 20, 2008 8:44 PM | Link to this
So the county taxpayers subsidized DPS bus costs to $850,000 dollars ($350,000 + $500,000). Not again.
By urban_girl75
June 20, 2008 6:43 PM | Link to this
If the district wants to save money on transportation, they need to revisit true neighborhood schools. There are far too many kids who are still being transported across town when there is a school right in their neighborhood. I think families would appreciate their child going to a closer school as well. They would be more willing to attend school functions and parent-teacher conferences.