First Student previously bused charter and private school kids in the 2021-2022 school year.
“We are not sure, even when we bid those 20 routes out, if we’ll have enough additional bus capacity to bus high schoolers,” Lawrence said.
Last school year, DPS bused students in kindergarten through eighth grade, and bought bus passes for students in high school. But the move was controversial.
In February, the CEO of the RTA, Bob Ruzinsky, said Dayton Public Schools should take over the responsibility of busing high school students, saying the students are causing problems in and around RTA buses and property.
Dayton Public was also criticized by private schools and charter schools for often not getting elementary and middle school students to school on time in the 2022-2023 school year, though the district said that was due to charter and private schools all wanting to start at the same time.
Public schools are required by state law to transport kids in kindergarten through grade 8 who live more than two miles from their school and who reside in the district to school, whether they go to district schools or not.
Lawrence said the district is in the process of estimating how many students will need to be bused to school.
“Juniors and seniors, they find a way to get to school,” he said. “They ride with somebody, or they figure it out, or they have their own car.”
But freshmen and sophomores may still need to be bused, he said.
In March, DPS school board member Joe Lacey called busing students a “civil rights” issue, and superintendent Elizabeth Lolli said the district would “take action” against the RTA if they chose not to bus students.
At a regular Tuesday board meeting, the school board unanimously approved a contract with Southwestern Ohio Educational Purchasing Council to purchase several buses. Lawrence said the district plans to purchase 15 buses using $2.4 million in federal COVID-19 stimulus dollars.
In March 2017, the district agreed to lease or finance 115 new buses all at once instead of buying 20 to 30 a year for the next several years. It’s unusual for a district to purchase that many buses at once, and Lawrence said the district would prefer to get back on a schedule to swap buses out.
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