Saturday, Sep. 15, 2012

Nicole Dozier: Let’s work together

Let’s work together

My children depend on school bus transportation, and I realize administrators are doing more with less, but our children’s backpacks are heavy enough – the budget should not be balanced on their backs. It’s an unfair burden.

Along with my neighbors, we’ve had issues since the first day for traditional-calendar schools, and I will only share the events of that day. My son, who attends middle school, surveyed buses until finding his nearly full, combined bus 45 minutes later. In the afternoon, it seemed he was on an after-school care bus, arriving home two hours after dismissal.

The bus failed to pick up my younger daughter, but the school assured me that she would get on the appropriate combined bus in the afternoon. After waiting over an hour at the bus stop, her bus arrived but she wasn’t on it! Another bus arrived about fifteen minutes later. She was on that bus.

That day, we had been provided two route numbers. The drivers and school staff were the face of the transportation office that day, and I’m grateful for them.

Budget cuts that affect transportation in this way cause anxiety in the kids, panic in the families, stress for the drivers, long hours for school staff, rides that are longer than the school system’s goal and can affect kids’ school performance, ability to exercise, down time and participation in after-school activities.

Schools encourage parent participation because of its lasting, positive impact, so we should work on this together.

Nicole Dozier

Apex