Ohio public and private students scramble for limited school bus rides

COLOMBUS, Ohio (AP) – A scramble is underway for Ohio families, a staple of the revitalization season.

Public school districts have cancelled bus transports for thousands of high school students this year, but in some cases they have bused students to private and charter schools to avoid sudden fines based on state requirements. In Dayton, StopGup’s efforts to provide public transit passes to students by judges last week were temporarily restored. This comes after the district sued, claiming that the state had illegally restricted the program.

The crunch of the ride appeared as a A lack of bus drivers It has been exacerbated by Ohio’s school transport regulations and their expansion Universal Voucher Program Help students pay to attend private schools. Although districts have been required for many years to transport students with Edchoice vouchers, there has been a dispute over how to intensify the method as the program has added nearly 90,000 students over the past four years.

Public Dollars for Private Student Buses

Public education advocates argue that Ohio’s transport mandate is inflexible, ambiguous and expensive.

You are responsible for transporting K-8 students to private or charter schools, even if the district holiday or bus breaks down. The district also requires that all high school students in private or charter schools in the same area be expanded to the transportation services they provide to their own high school students.

Several large districts respond by cancelling bus services to high schools entirely, offering urban transport passes where available or leaving public school students to find their own rides. And if those students are not notified within a certain period of time, these districts may still have to bus private students.

“It’s not a fair situation to know they have to get those public dollars to focus on other entities. I don’t think that’s right,” said Ronnie Tingle, Dayton’s mother, whose seventh graders are on a school bus and public school teens have to get on a city bus.

Senior daughter Suelony Tingle begins the morning morning by checking the app when the public bus arrives at her stop. It’s “not bad” to ride, but learning the route, catching connections and going to school on time can be challenging as arrival times fluctuate, she said.

Dayton Principal David Lawrence calls the Republican-led legislature bypassing around $2.5 billion in state education funding for the voucher program over the next two years “madness,” but it still calls for public districts for foot transport costs for those students. His district operates 54 bus routes for students and 74 bus routes for non-public students, according to data compiled by the Ohio 8 Coalition, which represents the eight largest districts.

The Dayton district can easily get on the bus for all public school students if the state finishes some of its requirements regarding transporting voucher students, Lawrence said.

“If we didn’t have to transport charter schools or bigoted students, we could have moved all 12 to 12 students from K to door,” he said. It also helps eliminate supplementary issues that have arisen for public high school students who will create their own methods for schools, such as the disruption of city buses and threats to physical safety, he said.

I’m writing a bill

Republican state Sen. Andrew Brenner, a school choice advocate who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said he doesn’t believe that economic hardships, logistics nightmares and driver recruitment challenges are causing the school transport crisis in Ohio, as public education advocates argue.

“That’s a completely inaccurate explanation,” he said. “What they did is that they exclude all children who have school choices in many districts and do everything they can to avoid transporting them.”

Brenner said he accused the district of providing $1,500 per student to the district to cover the costs of transporting voucher students, and abused the provisions that deemed voucher students to be “practically” buses and “paying in lieu of” transport to those families. This amount ranges from around $600 to $1,200 per student this year to offset family costs.

Public school districts claim that transporting both public and private students is more expensive than the state offers and contributes to budget issues. For Ohio’s largest district, the gap is a total of several million dollars.

Transportation burden for parents

Cleveland paid family members to 2,739 students, according to state data. Columbus was second on the list, paying about 2,500. The state sued Columbus schools and accused them of serving as a mandate on transporting voucher students.

“Parents are forced Leave their jobs and rearrange their lives Republican Attorney General Dave Yost scrambled last year to compete for transport while the school board fails to meet its legal obligations. Last year said.

Columbus defended the decision and insisted on folding students from those private schools into its operations – a sophisticated software-driven company where buses transport more than 16,000 public and 3,400 private students along around 450 routes – I couldn’t use it. Spokesman Mike Brown said the district has a $75 million budget for this year’s transportation year, with an additional $15 million being budgeted for transportation-related fines.

Lawrence said the Ohio setup requires public districts to cover the overhead of the transport system. Dayton includes buses that cost over $150,000 each, a $66,000 mechanic stability per year, a $1.1 million maintenance department, and drivers who earn an average of around $22 per hour. These wages aim to offset the “Amazon effect” of the drivers who choose Package distribution Ferry your kids for reasons such as comfort, schedule flexibility, pay.

Brenner said he hopes more public schools will explore the benefits of combining businesses and sharing resources within the county.

Ohio 8, the state’s largest urban and suburban district, claims it will help lawmakers resolve the issue by updating “outdated” laws and regulations to match current reality.

The research group was created on the final budget, but was entrusted with studying only one question. Here’s how to take private students to school on the day the public district closes. That recommendation is expected to be paid in June 2026.

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Associated Press VideoJournalist Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos contributed to this report.