Glidden believes these two obstacles should have been reason enough to give his daughter an exemption from the school district’s revised busing policy, which no longer provides busing for students who live within two miles of their school.
When voters rejected a school levy in May, among the items eliminated, was busing for students within a two-mile radius.
District officials turned down Glidden’s request, citing a lack of money and state minimum standards. Relief is on the way though, after the school board voted Tuesday, Oct. 13, to resume busing in January for kindergarten through eighth-graders.
At the root of the dispute, according to Ohio’s ranking official on school transportation, is a misunderstanding — bred by years of reliance on school buses — of who’s responsible for getting children to school.
Across the country, the misunderstanding has come to a head as parents and school officials clash over limited busing policies established by officials managing budgets in cash-strapped districts.
“All 50 (states) are struggling with this,” said Pete Japikse, transportation director for the Ohio Department of Education. “Across the country, Mom and Dad have come to depend on the yellow school bus. In many cases, they take it for granted.”
Unlike other schools districts in the Miami Valley, Springboro is making no exceptions to its interim busing policy, except for students with special needs.
Meanwhile, Springboro officials said no exceptions will be made for the students who use Mill Street to get to and from school.
“At no time has the Springboro Community City Schools Board of Education or administration required students to walk across the Mill Street Bridge,” Superintendent David Baker said in a Sept. 25 letter to Glidden.
While discouraging walking, Baker said, “car pooling, relatives driving, parents driving their students to school are all options for all parents and students.”
Glidden asked the school board for the exception for students who live in Creekside during a Sept. 22 meeting.
He told the board he counted three registered sex offenders along the route, noted the absence of sidewalks and the presence of near-empty school buses that travel along Mill Street transporting students who live outside the two-mile boundary.
“Please use your discretion to protect these children, as other districts in Ohio have done,” Glidden told the board.
While able to find a ride in the mornings, Glidden said his daughter winds up walking home because he has been unable to find her a reliable ride with friends or neighbors.
According to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office sex offender Web site, three convicted sex offenders — two with crimes against children — live or work between the intermediate school and Creekside, just east of the city’s historic downtown.
“It’s not correct to infer the district is telling those kids they have to walk to school,” Japikse said. “Mom and Dad have the obligation to get their student to and from school.”
Two-mile radius law
Ohio law requires districts to provide busing only for those students who live at least two miles from school.
Faced with rising transportation costs and budget deficits, districts around Ohio are cutting back on busing, some implementing the two-mile minimum.
“It’s going to take more funds for the schools to continue to provide this service,” Japikse said.
It’s up to local districts to decide if and when to make exceptions to the busing boundaries, he said.
All students are bused in the Wayne Local Schools, said Superintendent Pat Dubbs. Pick-up points are shifted to avoid sex offenders, he added.
In Kettering, Miamisburg and Mad River school districts, students are bused within a one-mile bus boundary, depending on road hazards and sex offenders, on a case-by-case basis, officials said.
In Beavercreek, school officials make exceptions to the district’s one-mile bus boundary in cases where the route to school presents unusual obstacles, said Gary Sattler, the district’s business director.
For example, students on Fairfield Road are bused, even if they live across from school, out of concern for their safety in crossing the busy four-lane “even if there’s a light,” Sattler said.
Like Springboro, the Beavercreek district developed into rural areas, leaving Fairbrook Elementary “an island” with no safe routes to school other than by bus. A recent bond issue includes money for a sidewalk on Gerspacher Road to Shaw Elementary.
The district will move bus stops and provide rides to students on buses with empty seats, Sattler said. Ultimately, he said who gets bused is a local, economic decision decided by voters’ acceptance of levies.
“The public has to make that determination. What they can afford, and what they want,” he said.
Glidden said he voted in favor of all four levies defeated in Springboro. He accused school officials of pressing for levy votes with the busing cuts.
“If they make exceptions, they feel they’re not going to be able to hold it over people’s heads,” he said.
School officials say their only alternative would be to compromise quality in the classroom over busing.
“The decision to cut busing was made because of the Board of Education’s commitment of impacting the classroom only as a last resort,” Baker said in his letter to Glidden.
As a result of last week’s board decision, all students from kindergarten to eighth grade will be able to ride a bus after the Christmas break.
Until then, no exceptions will be made, Baker said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2261 or lbudd@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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