If you watch the Lakewood BOE State Monitor video, the co-ed busing is not school busing, it’s commuter busing. Basically the bus will be running down centrally located avenues, picking up “people” and dropping them off at schools. It will be one trip there and one trip back. The bus driver will not wait. If a student is running late he/she will miss the only bus to or from the school.
This is a new concept and will not work.
A) Will the bus driver be able to verify the students? Anybody can wait at these bus stops and get on the buses. They can’t verify that they are picking up mandated students. Example: A student who lives within the 2 miles walks a block or two to the bus stop and takes the bus reserved for mandated students.
B) By having the bus stop away from the house it just makes it easier for some of the students to be abused or victimized. You are going to have high school students and first graders on the same bus, it a recipe for disaster.
C) Many students will miss the bus. These students will not attend school that day and will cost the district $151.25 per student per day. If they are absent (unexplained) more than ten days they may have to repeat the school year. Which in turn will result in a higher dropout rate. This is besides the courtesy bus student that will be dropping out.
D) What happens if a student doesn’t get off at his/her school or misses the bus on the way back, whose responsibility is it to get the student to the right school or home?
The way I see it, the district can either provide school busing which is door to door, or the state pays $884 per student to either the parent or the provider for school transportation.