https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/school-bus-route-disaster-kentucky-superintendent-admits-kids-got-home-10-pm
The Courier Journal reports the disaster came after major changes to school bus routes and school start times this year.
"Kentucky's largest school system cancelled the second and third day of classes"
"...the bus for her two elementary school children was scheduled to pick them up at 6 a.m. for a 7:40 a.m. school start. The bus stop is almost a half-mile from their home and there are no sidewalks."
The paragraph after that makes it even worse:
Gomis called the district’s transportation department but was told nothing could be changed, she said. Kentucky law allows bus stops for elementary students to be up to a half-mile away while middle and high school students may walk up to one mile.
It probably doesn't hurt a high schooler to walk a mile (although it would suck ass in the winter), but a half-mile for a first grader every morning no matter the weather? That should not be legal.
I used to live closer than that to my elementary school and I was forbidden (by the school) from walking to school.
That kinda sucks, used to live like 900m from mine and walked back from school every day since I started it.
Didn't walk to the school because I was too hard to get up early enough for it and mom didn't mind dropping me off in the morning
That's true for kids at my daughter's middle school too, but I'm actually glad they don't walk it because there aren't even any sidewalks around the school, let alone between the schools and their houses. So some kids have a 90 minute bus ride and other kids have a 2 minute bus ride. All they have to do is build sidewalks and it will fix that problem.
Our state requires "safe walking routes". I'm not sure about the distance to a bus stop, but I know for walking to school it's up to a mile for elementary school, if there are sidewalks. Otherwise they're bussed.
Why should half a mile of walking be illegal for first graders? There's a solution to rain and snow: it's called a jacket and umbrella. Source: I walked almost exactly half a mile to school in first grade.
Unless the weather is catastrophically bad, even first graders can walk half a mile.
The issue here is the carcentric, children-killing infrastructure, not the distance.
Not only Kentucky. I live in a rural California town of around 2000 people. There are no sidewalks except for the 1/4 mile in front of the elementary school, and that wasn't built until a kid was hit by a car 6 years ago. Last year a 4th grader was killed by a drunk driver walking home from school on the main road through town - which has no sidewalk. Most of us drive our kids to and from school now, particularly since an attempted abduction happened earlier this year. Bus service is available, but costs $185 a year per child and requires being at the stop an hour before school starts. My daughter won't let her kids walk the 1/4 mile to the bus stop unattended. Not in these times. I think the bus may become even more unpopular since the special ed driver was arrested last week for molesting kids.
There are no sidewalks in my (very large) subdivision, but all of the roads are far wider than necessary and could absolutely have a sidewalk on each side. But since there aren't any, you have to dodge people walking and jogging all the time. And people speed down the twisty roads too.
Even after increasing pay
Hmm, so what did they increase it to? Oh look only $20.65/hour., and I've heard of some school districts only paying during the driving meaning you show up for work early AM to pick up your bus as a driver and start being paid. You pick up and drop off kids for your routes. Now its maybe 9am. No more pay for you until you go back to the school and pick kids up again to take them home at maybe 2pm. I don't know if this district does this, BTW.
$20.65/hour is way WAY too low for a job with lots of unpaid hours in the middle of the shift, and having to be responsible and deal with kids that can't behave enough on a school bus.
Unless the bus company let me drive somewhere else since I’m not being paid then I’d be filing wage complaints with the state department of labor…
From experience, there is nothing preventing you from leaving, except that anything you do has to be close enough to the bus lot and meticulously scheduled to allow for you to drive from the bus lot to where you need to be and back while also allowing any prep time, especially if you need to pretrip your bus.
In other words, in theory, you can do whatever you want. In practice, you're straight up tethered to that lot. I worked out my actual pay last year. I made $22/hrs working for a major national transportation service. My average paid time was about 6.5 hours. My layover time was two separate segments. I had 2.5 hours of driving in the AM, about 1.5 in the late AM, and another 2.5 in the PM. These were separate by 2 hours, and then 2.5 hours. So, the reality of this schedule meant that I couldn't do much of anything on my downtime. I was obligated to 11 hours, only 6.5 of which I was paid. So, the reality was that I was making $13/hr. That math convinced me not to return this year. That, and my shit benefits caused me to get a $1,400 lab bill for work that was only $45 on my previous insurance. They screw you. They screw you coming, they screw you going, and anything that goes wrong is always your fault, while they're quick to take credit when things go well.
It ain't worth it.
They REALLY lowballed the funding when some locations have a stop half mile away on top of being slow and inefficient due to lack of drivers and driver training.
Why even pay a firm for optimal route planning if you dont even have the personel to execute it.
So I can't speak to every school district across the country, but I can speak for the one I worked in and there's a (good/bad, you be the judge) reason for that.
In my state the language is explicitly may provide transportation. So that means it's something they take upon themselves. They get money for transportation from the feds/state obviously, but let's all be honest that it's a drop in the bucket to what it should be. And it's not an easy job to coordinate. I don't know the particulars of this system, but the county I worked for had some absolute backwater areas in its district. We're talking thirty minutes up/down mountain roads to the nearest school.
Add onto the funding issues that, like you said, there is a noticeable lack of drivers. They don't get benefits, they get shit pay, AND they have to have a Driver's License endorsement that entitles them to MUCH better opportunities in private sector.
Not that I'm saying any of this applies to this scenario or excuses it, but until you actually get a glimpse into the sausage factory it's really easy to mischaracterize something as complex as insuring a bus for every child who needs it as a simple problem. I'm willing to speak for Transportation Directors across all schoolboards that the overwhelming majority of them are absolutely terrified of this scenario occurring in their district.
Edit: I will add that even though it was a relatively podunk district with some of the most rural locals in my state, the district I worked for did insist that they do house-to-house, meaning none of that 1/2 mile - 1 mile stops. And they elected to do that themselves.
One of the big issues is that school districts get funding based on things like property taxes, or geographic location. The result is that affluent districts or schools are will funded and have good services, and others do not. There may also be some willful underfunding in some places as well by folks that balk at any taxes or bonds that don't help them immediately.
However, even an underfunded district should have been able to see this plan would have issue and raised a red flag with the community in advance.
However, even an underfunded district should have been able to see this plan would have issue and raised a red flag with the community in advance.
Honestly, I don't think that would have stopped anything. One thing made abundantly clear to me from my time in that particular BoE is that the vocal minority literally could not care less. There were more people than I would have imagined griping and complaining that the busses weren't running to their area, despite the fact it is ultimately the parent's responsibility, and also despite the fact that they themselves weren't willing to grab an S endorsement and do the job themselves for not only their child but other people's as well.
And don't get me wrong, parents should have been notified and honestly this should have been trialed before opening day. But this would still be an article and people would still be up in arms because, sadly, it's often the loudest in the room that seem to lack the ability to take personal responsibility.
Wait, are you blaming the parents for not becoming bus drivers when its actually mismanagement from the privatized bus transport companies? Something doesnt track.
Yes, the parents in my area (not the area this article is about) I am blaming, but my area does not have a mismanagement issue so much as it has a massive shortage of bus drivers.
The bottom line is that in my state the school has no responsibility to provide transportation for your children get to school (outside of specific circumstances).Think of that how you will but ultimately that's neither here nor there. Don't have children if you don't want the responsibility that comes with them. And further, even if having children wasn't your choice that doesn't change that responsibility.
The other thing that needs mentioning is I'm singling out the vocal minority in particular. The people who get irate about the situation and think there has to be someone to blame in the BoE when more often than not the situation is out of their hands. The people who want to shout the loudest at people who's hands are tied are the least likely to lift a finger to alleviate the situation. And I get not everyone can just drop what they're doing, get an S endorsement and subsist on a bus driver's salary, but there's more than enough that can and won't. It's akin to the hand wringing about "dey tuk ar jerbs", the people who actually believe that won't actually go out and work as busboys, roofers, tree trimmers and farm hands. That's above them and too little of a wage for too much labor.
Instead of getting pissed at the BoE because there's a driver shortage due to subpar wages, increasingly hostile work environments and incredible amounts of responsibility and liability, maybe they could, I dunno, vote more responsibly? Write their state and federal representatives? Direct the anger at the people who have incredible control over the situation without having skin in the game?
Edit: and what the hell are you even talking about with "privatized bus transport companies"? Bus drivers are BoE employees meaning employees of their city/county school system and therefore state/public employees.
I didn’t really live that rural.. I… don’t think? but I was dropped off a half mile walk from my house because the bus would have had to back up a quarter mile to actually drop me off any closer, and I’d still have to walk a quarter mile because the bus couldn’t get down the gravel driveway. One side was a 26-foot deep man made pond (17 foot deep at the dam), the other side was a 15 foot drop into a marsh, with a dam between them passing under the driveway. Nothin doin.
When we got new drivers some of them tried but it was so uncomfortable for me to have caused that situation I just told them not to bother… I was 10, used to it, so it was whatever.
When I was like 13 my mom forgot to pick me up from wrestling practice and I had to walk 12 miles home in the dark along the highway. She didn’t realize I wasn’t there until I walked in at like 10:30.. That wasn’t a lot of fun. That’s not really related to the bus issue, other than I wasn’t really that far from the school, I just felt the need to offload it. :)
Better cut more funding for K-12! Some of these kids can still tell time!
The US has collapsed, most just aren't willing to admit it to themselves.
JCPS is not suffering for funding. A big part of the issue is they used shitty software to plan a bus route. On top of it being notoriously hard for keeping drivers in the district.
Edit: but shit like this happens and the R’s that control the state are going to start calling for the funding to be slashed, because might as well, its already one of the worst in the state.
JCPS needs a massive overhaul. Something big needs to change.
The drivers aren't vanishing in the night at the hands of shadowy cabal.
It's "notoriously hard for keeping drivers" because the money needed to keep them has been pocketed by administrators or politicians. That's why their wages keep going up but the wages of everyone below them keep going down.
It's a problem with an identifiable cause and known solution, and it needs to be said out loud every time.
"On top of it being notoriously hard for keeping drivers in the district."
If you pay them, they will drive. If you raise them adequately regularly, they will stay.
Just like the national "teacher shortage" because we pay them dogshit relative to their education, tell them they're spoiled and don't even deserve dogshit, and then blame the few still showing up for poor outcomes. Then, when kids recognize that getting into teaching makes you a sucker, we cry tears of blood about classroom sizes as if we can't trace back why.
We should take half the defense budget for 10 years and put it into rebuilding the utter ruin that is public K-12, in order of the states with the worst outcomes, if we want to even compete in the future. We of course won't though. We'll jist keep saying "if only there was something we could dooooooooo..."
Ooh I know, we should cut rich peoples taxes yet again, that'll help this time for sure!
There are hundreds of administrators in this school district making six figures. The main administrator makes 300k+ if we didn't have enough drivers these tax payer funded jerkoffs could've been out driving these buses and getting these kids home safely. JCPS likes to waste money year in and year out and every single year they do something embarrassing. This one was top tier embarrassing.
Something I haven't seen in the comments but is very important to the equation.... Louisville has a very messed up bussing situation and has for years.
I'm not SUPER aware of the details, but that's because I live on the southern Indiana side of the river (just miles away from Louisville). My wife moved over here years ago specifically to avoid this issue for her kid before he was in the school system.
Louisville has a long standing policy where there is some sort of lottery that chooses what school you go to, rather than your school being determined by your nearest available.
The idea was clearly based on good intentions... to ensure that kids from any neighborhood would have the same opportunities, etc etc.
However, in reality it is a nightmare. Louisville isn't the largest metro area or the most sprawling, but still, trying to bus students from every school to every part of the county is ridiculous.
I think they made some changes in the past few years to make it easier to get a closer school, but again I'm not super up to date on it because it doesn't affect me other than the bus routes being an issue every year and hearing about it on the local news.
It's gotten worse and worse over the years though.
Again, I'm sure there are much more informed people with better info on this out there, but until they jump in I figured I'd add some pertinent info since this isn't a local lemmy community.
They just need to spread the money out to all schools per capital, not spread the children out lmao.
Our education system is a huge joke.
OMG I'd be so pissed. Like, I'd weather just pick them up myself, or track the bus down and pull them off of it.
For a time, I lived an hour from my school. Caught the bus at about 530am, and got home at like 5ish. Very rural area in the Mojave desert. But this is just so bad.
I'm not familiar with your school background, but I suspect a watershed distinction is rural vs urban districts. I've had kids in both, and in rural districts, the buses are important, but not as vital for in-town kids as in the metro areas. I'n the rural districts as many kids were dropped off by car or public transit as took the school buses. In the metro areas, the bus might be required or effectively the only option.
It's all speculation, but this isn't Podunk Kentucky; this is Louisville. This is really something a metro of nearly a million people should have figured out by now. But easy to Monday morning quarterback, and I do sympathize with the funding constraints and public apathy.
You're right and it's on me for not reading the article to understand that this is Louisville so it does make for a much, much different experience than my region.
School system: "Kids..... Fuck 'em!"
I really hope this is more "didn't realize a mistake in the planning" and not "knew and expected 10 pm drop off"
Though when I was young I had to walk to the other side of my block to get a ride to school because my house was with in a half mile of school, the other corner wasn't. That wasn't a huge deal, but still stupid.
It's unintentional in that they thought they could handle the number of kids needing to be bused, despite the fact that they were massively defunded and there weren't enough buses or trained drivers
Because they have to do something to improve the situation. As long as that something is not pay the drivers enough that people would be willing to do the job. Because then the teachers would realize how fucked over they are getting and quit to be bus drivers which would only worsen the teacher shortage.
Yeah, the article says they increased pay and still weren't getting enough drivers. So... do it again. You've already know the knob you need to turn to resolve your problems, you just don't want to turn it any further. Especially not when you can throw money at what seems like corruption (incompetent consultants) instead.
My bus ride home from school was about an hour when I was in middle school. I thought that sucked, lol.
The elementary school in my town is slightly over half a mile away. No buses here, not sure what the issue is with having a bus stop up to a half mile away.
Want help? Ask questions instead of making statements. Looks like you spent too much time walking to school and not enough time inside it.
It's not so much the distance (although that is a bit far for a 6-7 yr old to walk) ... it's that there are no sidewalks, so kids have to walk on the roadway, which means it's likely at least one will be hit this school year.
I mean, the lack of sidewalk for the k-5 kids is a big deal depending on the type of road and how busy it is. The busses not getting kids home until 10 pm is beyond the pale.
Plus a 6 am pickup for k-5 means the kids are walking to the bus stop around dawn or even in the dark parts of the year, with no sidewalk. The school could be miles away which in city traffic could be significant, and many folks don't have other options.
What a terrible situation for the kids and families.
This is Louisville, a city with a metro area of about 400 square miles and a population of about 800,000