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A proposal that could phase out school bus service to areas within 2 miles of schools worries some parents and day care centers.
By ROBERT KING, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 9, 2002
Child care centers and the parents who rely on them are mobilizing against a proposal that could eventually phase out school bus service to areas within 2 miles of schools.
Superintendent Wendy Tellone says the school district could save $460,000 a year if it halts school bus pickups close to schools. Two weeks ago, she announced that a study will be done this fall to gauge the impact of such a move.
Already, the feedback is pouring in.
At Tuesday night's School Board meeting, petitioners turned in more than 100 signatures, primarily those of child care providers and the parents they serve. They want to preserve bus service in neighborhoods close to schools.
Their concern focuses on the fact that many working parents have schedules that don't correspond well with the school day. Some go to work long before their children's school day begins. Some work long after it ends. And some do both.
The school district has played a vital role in their scheduling solution, picking up kids from day cares, transporting them to school and bringing them back to the day cares in the afternoon.
Some parents and day care providers say their transportation link would be broken if their day care center falls within the 2-mile no-pickup zone.
Ericka Wilson, a single mother in Spring Hill, has a 6-year-old son who attends J.D. Floyd Elementary and who gets before- and after-school care at Great Beginning Pre-School on Spring Hill Drive.
Without the bus link, Wilson doesn't know what she would do.
"I have no idea," Wilson said. "I don't want to take him to a private school day care. They have transportation. But they also do corporal punishment."
Elizabeth Mancini, who owns Great Beginning, said she would lose families and income if the buses stopped coming. The cost of adding vans and liability insurance for them would be prohibitive, she said.
In the end, the loss of buses to connect the school to the day care would mean more "latchkey" kids -- children who are at home alone until parents arrive home, she said.
Debbie Ferguson, who runs a child care business out of her home, said she would be sunk and her parents would be in a lurch without the school bus link.
Noreen St. Jean agrees. A curriculum specialist with Childhood Development Services Inc., which runs a state program that subsidizes day care costs for qualifying parents, St. Jean said many of the more than 115 day cares in Hernando County rely on school bus service.
She said altering the bus service would have a drastic impact on the home-based day cares -- those with 10 or fewer children -- who operate within the 2-mile radius. Those operations would never be able to afford vans without pricing themselves out of business, she said.
St. Jean said walking the kids to school is not realistic for the typical home-based day care, where one adult supervises up to 10 kids, including infants and toddlers.
"It's not just a matter of 'Oh, let's let the kids walk.' It's almost an impossibility," she said. St. Jean has a simple suggestion for the school district: Leave things as they are.
State law requires school districts to provide transportation to children who live more than 2 miles from their assigned school. For years, the school district also has provided "courtesy" rides to kids who live within the 2 miles. It was justified as a safety precaution, particularly in areas with no sidewalks.
Tellone said she is concerned about safety. But she wants to look at ending courtesy rides in areas with adequate sidewalks. Many other districts don't provide courtesy rides, she said, and the district could use the cash savings elsewhere.
Tellone said the public will have plenty of chances this fall to speak up on the courtesy ride issue. And the School Board will have to sign off on any changes. If approved, cutbacks in the courtesy rides would not begin until the fall of 2003. And Tellone said even those curtailments would be phased in -- a half-mile per year.