Paying to ride the bus to school?

[Troy_McClure_SF]

@WhyNot

We’re in the CPS (Chicago Public School) system, and there are no school buses at all. Students use the CTA buses if they want.

Same here pretty much*. Anyone under 18 can get a discounted Fast Pass for Muni**.

I see school buses out and about, but I remember seeing one that was marked as owned by the City/County.
*-all us San Francisco kids got around via the BMW… Bart/Muni/walking.
**-also known as the Big Orange Limo

[Cub_Mistress]

@TheLoadedDog

The American system of the schools themselves paying for/providing bus transport is one of those few things that strikes me as very foreign. I don’t know enough about it to say yea or nay to it, but I seem to hear a lot of stories of schools having trouble financing it.

The situation in Australia (in my state at least) is that the state government contracts local bus companies to provide the daily school bus service (individual school administrations are spared the hassles of providing this themselves). Children living more than 1.6km (1 mile) from school via the shortest route are issued with a bus pass entitling them to free travel to and from school. If there is a bus available, kids living less than that distance will pay a small cash fare to the driver (the idea being that the little sods should be walking).

The Free Student Travel Scheme (as I think it’s called) only provides regular to and from school service, and other stuff like sporting events needs to be paid for by the school or the parents. The schools neither employ drivers nor own buses (some wealthy private schools excepted).

I’m sure our system does seem very strange. Part of the problem is that each county has a separate school board and school system. Tennessee, where I live, has 95 counties plus some cities that have their own school systems. This means there are somewhere around 110 + different school systems just in this one state. Each one has it own rules, customs, regulations and budget. The mind boggles, doesn’t it?

The thing about schools having to finance certain things themselves is just a budgeting issue. Each county decides how much tax money to give the schools each year, and to a certain extent, it is up to the school system to make that amount cover the things it needs to operate, much like any other governmental branch. However, many school districts have discovered that demanding fees for many things (see WhyNot’s list) is a sneaky way of getting more money into their budget from parents. I had never heard of bus fees before, but it’s really just one more example, as is schools demanding that students bring in such items as toilet paper, soap and paper towels.

[norinew]

@RachelChristine

Our school system has introduced another burden on the teachers as of last year. We now are required to provide school supplies for the kids. I can recommend things for my classes, but I can’t require even pencil and paper. When school starts next week we can say something like “I recommend you have a notebook (or binder or whatever) and writing utensils and fill in the blank for what you need”, but any kid who doesn’t have any of this can not be penalized in any way. I have to keep extra pencils and paper ready at all. I have to be ready to supply anything required – composition notebooks in English, calculators in Math, and so forth. You see, sending home those lists of school supplies for kids does not constitute a “Free Education for all”. I have no problem helping kids with financial difficulties, but I went through boxes and boxes of pencils and ream after ream of paper last year – and teachers were not given any more money to spend on supplies!

Our school district started doing this last year, as well. Now, I can understand why-we are in a very low-income area, and a low-income family with four kids in school, each of whom need $60.00 worth of school supplies. . .

Still, when it came time (last year and this) to buy school supplies for mudgirl, who is just starting third grade, I bought “extras” for the class room, because, even though I was told the school would supply necessary materials, I knew that realistically, the teachers would pay. And they don’t make enough as it is.

I keep an eye out the rest of the year, too. When I find a particularly good sale on crayons, pencils, Kleenex, I buy a few and send them in.

As for buses, they are provided at no extra charge in our district, if you live more than a certain distance from the school. Mudgirl rides the bus because we live four miles from the school.