“These are the times that try men's souls.” | A little insight about transportation costs here. My school district is close to 1,200 sq. miles. But there is a lot of mountains in there that nobody lives in. So school busing is broke down in to geographical areas. The kids in the western end of the county are bused to another school district. We pay that district to school those kids, it is too far to bus them to our schools. There is areas in N. Utah that send there kids into Idaho from them to go to school. Also in some areas, they have Elementary schools in the valley, but as the kids reach high school age the kids move to town, and live with families in town to go to school. That takes a real commitment on everybody's part. It would be just about a two hour ride for those kids to get to town. I all those years I can never remember any of those kids getting in trouble in town.
As far as buses, it is almost cheaper to run a bigger bus, than a van type bus. When I was on the school board, it cost were within $ 10,000 difference in cost for a van type vs. a 64 passenger bus. Fuel costs just about the same. So if we needed to transfer buses around on routes, they were big enough to haul all kids. The biggest costs were insurance costs. Nobody will insure a reg. passenger type van, nor mini van as well. To many accidents. It is much safer to put kids on a yellow bus than a reg. van/car. I would rather have my kids on a yellow bus any day than a car or van. There chances of walking away from a wreck is greater from that than a car. We really did a lot of work looking at routes, no back tracking. We have one bus pick kids up in one valley, have them transfer to another bus to go over the hill to school, to save miles. The state did reimburses our district up to 98% up until a two years ago, that changed I'm thinking to 90% of yellow bus miles none on van type miles nor miles to extracurricular activities ( sports, FFA, etc.).
Utah State Univ. had a Dodge full size van wreck here 30 miles from my farm a few years ago. Only three kids lived in that wreck. It was at harvest time, they were at a dry farm checking out JD's newest combine. It was the Ag. Tech. program there. Very sad deal, in middle of summer, dry roads, single vehicle wreck. Speed, tires, etc. were involved. They had a tire blow out, lost control. To this day, they still don't really know if kids had seat belts on. There was indications on bodies they had them on. The 3 kids that lived, said they did.
Fast forward today, some school districts have cut transportation to sporting events, they are having parents haul football players to games, they are setting themselves up for a disaster. I wouldn't want my kid riding with other kids in a minivan to a football game. Plus I'm betting if insurance companies ever found out they would drop those parents coverage real fast.
Were I live on the border of two states, I see how both states, really try to save money in busing kids, but to truly save, on state needs to give in and let the other one take all the kids in the geographical area to save miles. But if they did, that school loses funding. I pay taxes into two school systems, send my kids to Idaho.
All extracurricular travel ( sports, FFA, etc.) is now paid by parents as it should be. They piggyback with other districts to events. We live in a area were they have to travel so far to go anyplace. At some point and time, they need to say enough is enough! We don't need to go to so many events. If they do, then those kids parents need to pay for it all. The retired couple in town, has a obligation to help get kids to school, but they shouldn't have to pay for all the extra travel for kids sporting, fun trips, etc. That should be the parents burden.
One of the biggest problems with buses is at least in Idaho, the state will only let them run a set number of years( 9-10) they aren't insurable after that. They have less than 200,000 miles on them. They need to change that law so as long as the bus meets DOT inspections, and is safe lets run it. We take over the road trucks to a million miles, why can't we do the same with buses? It is a big racket you buy a $70,000 bus, run it for 10 years, sell it for bid for $1,000 to 2,000. The salvage on those bus components are worth more more than that.
We need to refurbish them, and keep running them as long as they are DOT safe. I've tried to get school districts go to state and get that changed. |
rural school question
