Another meeting is planned for May 19 at the Montgomery County Educational Service Center.
Currently, high school students living in Dayton are not taken to school on yellow buses due to financial constraints, according to Dayton Public Schools officials. Instead, the district purchases RTA bus passes for students. But students, Dayton school leaders and the RTA have all said they want students to be bused on yellow buses - except district officials say the school cannot afford the cost.
Some of the proposed short-term solutions including moving the bus hubs away from downtown and using Dayton Public Schools owned properties to transport students. The current version of the statehouse budget includes a provision blocking students from being bused out of the downtown hub, after Alfred Hale, a Dunbar High School senior, was shot and killed downtown at the hub.
“It’s not about being in downtown Dayton,” said second vice president of the Dayton Unit NAACP, Tom Roberts. “It’s about getting our babies from home to school, from school to home in a safe way.”
NAACP president Derrick L. Foward said he is optimistic that there will be some solutions in place before the state budget is put into place on July 1.
But Plummer said this is clearly something that needs a long term solution. Dayton Public officials have said they need more money to buy new buses and train more drivers.
Plummer said this is a problem that other cities are having in Ohio too, not just Dayton.
“I think, personally, that the financial piece is the long-term effect on the entire state of Ohio,” Plummer said.
Mims said he is open to working with more partners who have ideas to help young people. He said blaming teenagers for what’s happening downtown when their options are limited isn’t fair.
“Way too often, we blame our young people for the actions they perform, and sometimes forget that we create laws, regulations, the environment for them to do what it is they’re doing,” Mims said.
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