Students in Southern California are being forced to make long walks home in sweltering temperatures after school bus service cuts, including one sixth-grader whose eliminated stop could leave him trekking 3.5 miles after class.
In San Diego County’s Ramona Unified School District, parents say an ongoing shortage of bus drivers has led to route consolidations that are pushing some children to walk significantly farther to get home.
For families, the concern is not just inconvenience. With a heatwave bearing down on the region, one parent worries the extended walk could become a real safety risk.
Bud Kaelin said his sixth-grade son’s bus stop at 14th and H streets was removed after the district revised its transportation routes.
According to Kaelin, district officials said the former stop was unsafe, but they also would not permit his son to board at a different stop.
As a result, Kaelin said, his child may now have to walk 3.5 miles home from school.
“They cut us off completely from getting any kind of a ride on the school bus,” Kaelin told NBC San Diego.
Under district policy, middle and high school students are eligible for bus transportation only if they live more than 2.5 miles from campus.
The distance is measured in a straight line, “as the crow flies,” rather than by the streets students actually have to walk.
That has parents crying foul.
“As the crow flies is, you know, pretty, pretty vague. And yeah our kids don’t fly… They walk,” parent Mary Emily told the outlet.
Kaelin said he doesn’t want his son walking more than a mile, especially during the heatwave.
“Could he be in some kind of serious situation where, like, he was feeling heat exhaustion and his vision was impaired trying to cross the street, and he thought it was a stop car, but it wasn’t and he walked out in front of that car?” he asked.
So Kaelin started leaving his construction job three hours early every day during the first week of classes to pick up his son.
He claimed the bus mess cost him his job.
“Today, my boss just told me it looks like the crew cost is getting heavy. So, that’s not going to be good for me tomorrow,” Kaelin said.
Emily said her own 15-year-old daughter is now facing about a q-mile walk to the next bus stop after the district eliminated a route on Hope Street.
“What are the stats that we’re looking at? Is it the number of kids per stop? Is it, you know, how much money is coming out of this stop?”
Emily also accused the district of picking and choosing when safety matters.
“You’re picking and choosing here, like one day. ‘It’s not a safety concern. It’s as a crow flies. Y’all eat the s—t sandwich and deal with it.’ And this is what we’re doing. And then the next it’s ‘well, that’s a safety concern,’” she said.
Ramona Unified told families in a letter that it was forced to consolidate routes because of the ongoing driver shortage.
The district said the changes were the safest way to keep transportation running for as many students as possible.
