Auburn MA Public School Bus Fee - Update pg 13 #184

[KatRob]

A few years ago they tried to charge for the kids to ride busses but it got shot down fast. Then there was the rule about how far away you were. I drove DD from K-8th grade, she's in HS now and I convinced her to ride the bus home...she loves it.

I don't have to rush to get to the school by 2:00 or whatever. And I don't have to sit in a car in 95-100+ temps. We live less than 5 minutes from the school, and when I asked for a bus stop (at our driveway, no less) I just had to tell them our street was too dangerous and every stop was a driveway! and no one was available to pick her up every day. But one of the other girls on that bus has to walk 1 mile down a dead end road because there is no place for the bus to turn around. I had hoped her mom would get off her rear and meet her but so far she hasn't.

 

[traces7]

We live in a small town in Wisconsin and have to pay for the school bus if you live in town (seems weird huh!). If you live in the country you don't pay.
My DD is in 3rd grade this year. Since kindergarten, she's been taking the bus. She gets picked up from her daycare in the a.m. and dropped off there after school.
This year the price for the bus went up to $310 if you paid early, $340 otherwise. (was about $280 last year). That just seemed a little too high for us. Part of it is the high gas costs I know.
I talked to my employer and am able to switch my hours so, I will now be able to drop my DD off at school in the a.m. and we got her in the Boys and Girls Club after school at her school.
So, no school bus bill or daycare bill for us this year! For the first time in 8 years!!
I know a lot of other parents finding other options this year too! I didn't realize we were the exeption for paying for bussing...interesting!

 

[klineyqueen]

Amazing how varied the handling of busing is in the different states. I have to say that our state of PA actually seems fairly reasonable in the handling of the matter. They do require you to be a certain distance away from the school (I think 1 1/2 miles for elementary and 2 miles for secondary), but there is no fee for busing in any district of which I am aware.

Also, PA law actually requires districts to bus private school students in their district if the private school is less than 10 miles away from a district boundary. Again, this is provided at no cost to parents.

I teach in PA and all of the schools around me have "free" bussing. It is not required. School districts could cut it at anytime. This was discussed when they were trying to get all districts to vote on accepting the gambling tax money.

 

[shrpgrl]

We live in Mishawaka, In. and they do not provide bus service. The kids either have to ride the city bus or parents drive them. We do not live near a city bus stop so I drove my son the 15 minutes to school. I also drove the neighbor's kids because I was the only parent not working days at the time. Big hassle. DS is now in college locally and thank goodness he drives.

 

[EeyoreJMH]

Hmm. I never thought of this. When I was a kid in Marshfield, MA, we lived about a mile from the grammar (K-5) school, so my brother and I had to walk. I asked my mom, and she didn't recall even having the option to pay. We were just part of the "walkers and bike riders" group-- which was actually the "cool" kids in my school, so we never complained.

 

[allison443]

MA state law says any child 5th grade or lower and under 2 miles from the school, transportation does have to be provided.

I don't understand this... did you mean to write that MA state law says for kids under 2 miles from the school, transportation does NOT have to be provided?

 

[stefplus3]

I live in Scituate,MA. My dds are in 7th and 8th grade so I pay $450 for their bus. It doesn't bother me too much (except it is due in June when I have several other big bills).

I look at it this way, what I pay in taxes wouldn't cover 1 dd in private school. So rather than wonder where my tax money is going I think of it as a bargain.

There have been well publicized town meetings here on the south shore for overrides to pay for the schools. Scituate just passed one. I have been to town meetings and the climate is brutal. No one wants taxes raised for anything.

I grew up in Scituate and lived there for 20 years We now live in Weymouth, Ma and the bus is $250 for the first child and $225 for the 2nd, and so on. I drive my boys!

 

[It's A Happy Day]

I don't understand this... did you mean to write that MA state law says for kids under 2 miles from the school, transportation does NOT have to be provided?

Yes - I keep mucking up that over/under thing.

 

[reginaastralis]

My mom tells me stories about when she was a kid and how they had to pay bus fares. This isn't something that still goes on around here, and luckily my mom can laugh about it now. Her parents struggled and were very poor when she was growing up. She remembers her mom having to scrape together bus money.

When I was in elem. the parents fought and won to have us bussed to school, though we lived less than 2 miles away. They wanted us to cross a 6 lane highway to get to school. The parents said no way. We didn't ride the bus, we went to daycare before school b/c of my mom's work schedule, I just remember the parents talking about it all the time.

We don't have bus fees here, but have school choice. If your child is going to their "home" school, they get bussed there. If you choose for them to go to another school, you have to provide transportation. Some parents don't agree with this, but I think the district would be in over their head if they tried to take each kid from each neighborhood to 10 different schools.

 

[Kathi OD]

Amazing how varied the handling of busing is in the different states. I have to say that our state of PA actually seems fairly reasonable in the handling of the matter. They do require you to be a certain distance away from the school (I think 1 1/2 miles for elementary and 2 miles for secondary), but there is no fee for busing in any district of which I am aware.

Also, PA law actually requires districts to bus private school students in their district if the private school is less than 10 miles away from a district boundary. Again, this is provided at no cost to parents.

And that 10 mile boundary includes busing to private schools in other states as well!

 

[Beca]

Where we live, there is no option to pay and be picked up if you are within two miles...the buses just do not make stops in those neighborhoods. I would just consider yourself lucky that you live somewhere that you have such an option.

 

[The Disney Bunch]

Our school uses the as the crow flies rule- I don't know of any school in our area that does not. And if we want the busing, it is $400 a kid, even if you have more than one kid going to the same address.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Sorry to hear that. My town, Stoughton, MA also charges like $240 to bus kids to school. I grew up in Boston and never heard of paying for a school bus. But I guess it is different in the burbs we have come to find out.

Actually, it’s different now than when we were kids (vs. between the city and the ‘burbs). Prop 2½ and all that. Side note: I went to, let’s see… six different schools from kindergarten to high school, and lived in the same house the entire time. Now, or at least until it closed last year, kids in my old neighborhood no longer got bus transportation to the elementary school. We always did (well, except the time my five year old brother got tired of waiting for his ride home from a special summer program and walked – to the HORROR of every adult we knew!). Oh, well, wait – there was that couple of weeks when the kids on the three lower streets were expected to walk, but the kids on the five upper streets got to take the bus. THAT lasted yep, two weeks. When the school department figured out everyone was walking two or three blocks, instead of a mile and a half…

=============

Okay, well, here’s http://finance1.doe.mass.edu/transport/guide_0.html the general law; and below is some information quoted directly from East Longmeadow’s site http://www.eastlongmeadow.org/Schools/transpolicy.htm ; it would be reasonable to think that the easily-understood method used to determine the qualifying distance for free school transportation in one Massachusetts city/town would apply to the same determination in all other MA cities/towns:

According to Massachusetts General Laws, the school district is required to provide free transportation for K-6 students whose legal residence is in excess of two (2.0) miles from the school that he/she is assigned to attend. The Department of Education’s policy regarding the “measurable distances” provisions set forth in M.G.L., c 71, s 68, is as follows:

Portal to portal shall mean the sidewalk or public way in front or nearest to a pupil’s home of residence to the entrance way of the school building the pupil is attending. When there is more than one entrance way to the school building either entrance way may be used for measuring distances if both of the entrances are ordinarily accessible. Commonly traveled route shall mean a sidewalk or public way which, in the ordinary course, is open and accessible to pedestrian traffic.

For practical purposes, the measurable distance shall mean two (2.0) or more miles and will be measured from the sidewalk or public way in front of or nearest to the student’s home to the location where the school buses drop off students at the school.

Print this out, or the East Longmeadow page, before you go present your argument. I mean, while it might be 1.9 miles from your property to the school property, it could easily be 2+ miles to where the buses drop off! Plus, Mapquest isn’t always accurate. My office has an odd but official (per the USPS) address; when I try to Mapquest from here, the directions actually start me about a quarter mile up the street. When I use the building’s main address, the directions and mileage are accurate.

 

[princessesrule]

This is amazing. I have never heard about having to pay for the school bus. INteresting!

 

[allyphoe]

I had physically pulled out of our driveway, set the odometer, and driven every direction, method, route possible to the school and the shortest route possible hits exactly 2 miles

According to Massachusetts General Laws, the school district is required to provide free transportation for K-6 students whose legal residence is in excess of two (2.0) miles from the school that he/she is assigned to attend.

By my reading (any departmental interpretations notwithstanding), if you live exactly 2 miles away, you don't live more than 2 miles away.

 

[Pigsty333]

We live in Wonderful Orlando. If your kid attends a magnet school, because they applied and got accepted (because their zoned school has an F Grade), you then must drive them to school as there is no transportation. The same applies to any sports, event they participate - you drive as many kids as possible to and from the school.

If the school had an F grade, which the ones my kids are zoned for,then they op for a Charter School which one of attends, you are also responsible for providing their transportation to and from school.

The way things are here in Orlando we have zero,zippo, nada by way of public transportation near us and our elected officials say we don't need it. It takes me 35 minutes (no traffic) to drive one child plus about $3 each way in tolls,not counting mileage and gas.

My son, because his school got an F grade and was given the option to transfer into a better performing school, but not via a magnet, gets a bus. The kicker - the bus picks them up at 5:00 AM and they don't get to school until 7:05AM and class begins at 7:20AM. Needless to say, these kids are exhausted by the end of the day -2 hrs. on a bus each way. No wonder they are all not passing their FCAT tests.

With all the tourist tax dollars and revenues they get, it still amazes me that we have to provide transportation if they elect a magnet or take part in sports.

I used to live in Yonkers and they had a federal lawsuit, after which we could go to any school in the district and busing wa provided, including for those attending catholic school.

By the way the number of kids attending school with my son - keep in mind this is only one of about 13 HS in Orange County is 3,400 - that's a lot of kids. Figure out all those extra parents and students driving to and from school, and no wonder we have crazy traffic.

 

[katieandallycat]

When DD (now going into 8th) was in 1st, you could do the bus, but it was $250 per kid, didn't matter that we were 2.5 miles away.
We have of course moved. For middle school, we are are 1.5 miles away, no bus is offer, unless you are overflow or special ed.
DD (now going into 3rd), thru 1st grade qualified to go on the bus because she was in special ed(she's autistic). She was main streamed for 2nd, but it was not going well (understatement!)with the assigned teacher, and they didn't have any other appropriate openings, so she was sent to another school. So bussing was supplied. This year she is staying at the school she transferred too, but she isn't under overflow, so no bussing. She is one of few students in the district that is under administration rule (meaning the administration, changed her home school of record, due to issues at the home school)

 

[daughtersrus]

I'm in IL so the rules are probably different. For us, children that live less than 1 1/2 miles from the school are not provided transportation unless it's determined to be a needed service in the child's IEP or there is an intersection that the state has labeled as being "dangerous". Some school districts will offer the option to pay for transportation but only will only makes stops along the route to school (they will not go out of their way) and there is room for the children on the bus (they won't add additional buses).

For us, they determine the shortest distance to the school as a child could walk. When the schools were built, they actually walked 1 1/2 miles from the door of the school in various directions. It could be that one house will get bus service but their next-door neighbor won't. When the school in our subdivision was built a few years ago, it was built adjacent to a park. To drive there, it's just over 1 1/2 miles but to walk it, it's around 1 mile because you can cut through a path/bridge in the park.

I'm not sure that anyone actually thought about the location of the school and neighborhood when it was built. There is only one road into and out of the school. There are close to 900 kids (Kdge-5th). Over 1/2 of them do not get bus service. To make matters worse, the 3 morning Kdge classes are "busers" and the 3 in the afternoon are all "walkers". The pick-up line in the winter or bad weather stretches for blocks and there is no shelter for the kids to cover the children while they wait for their car to get up along the sidewalk. Sometimes I wonder if the decision makers thought things through or not.

The rate here is about $500.00/child. I'm sure that this doesn't make you feel better but I thought that I'd let you know that you are not alone.

 

[katieandallycat]

Oh, and bussing is only provided thru 3rd for open enrollment kids.

 

[daughtersrus]

When DD (now going into 8th) was in 1st, you could do the bus, but it was $250 per kid, didn't matter that we were 2.5 miles away.
We have of course moved. For middle school, we are are 1.5 miles away, no bus is offer, unless you are overflow or special ed.
DD (now going into 3rd), thru 1st grade qualified to go on the bus because she was in special ed(she's autistic). She was main streamed for 2nd, but it was not going well (understatement!)with the assigned teacher, and they didn't have any other appropriate openings, so she was sent to another school. So bussing was supplied. This year she is staying at the school she transferred too, but she isn't under overflow, so no bussing. She is one of few students in the district that is under administration rule (meaning the administration, changed her home school of record, due to issues at the home school)

I'm assuming that your daughter has an IEP. If transportation is listed in the IEP, they must provide it.

My daughter does not attend her "home-school" so the district must provide the transportation and pay the tuition.

If you want your DD to get a bus, I would see what you can do to get that listed as a related service in her IEP.