Hearings slated for school bus route cutbacks

DeKalb County school officials starting next week will hold four community meetings to get information out about cutbacks in student busing that begin in January.

All four meetings start at 6:30 p.m. They will be held Wednesday at Chamblee Charter High School; Thursday at Avondale High School; Nov. 18 at Southwest DeKalb High School; and Nov. 20 at Columbia High School.

Starting Jan. 6, busing will be cut back for most students who attend schools outside their neighborhood; the busing cutback will start next school year for Champion Theme Middle School.

The change affects about 5,600 of the school district’s 99,600 students, including those in magnet schools, charter schools and academic theme schools or who transferred from lower-performing campuses.

DeKalb will have centralized hubs, where parents need to drop off their children to be picked up by school buses and taken to school. Parents are responsible for picking up the children at the same hubs after school. This is a change from the system’s current policy, which buses many students almost door-to-door.

School board members approved the plan this week as one of several budget-cutting proposals that come in the wake of a sour economy and state funding cuts. The busing plan will save the system $2 million this school year and $4 million annually.