Last year, Trisha’s morning commute was easy. She would walk a few steps outside her door, wait with the other kids in her neighborhood, and then board the yellow bus that would take them all to school.
Trisha, now 11 years old and in sixth grade, enjoyed her school trip outside of Houston, Texas. “I really liked how you could talk to your friends, and it was so easy to get on the bus because it was so close,” she told me.
This year, due to budget cuts, His school district No longer serves students who live within two miles of their school. For Trisha, who lives 1.9 miles away, walking An hour alone Each way — in places where the temp 100 degrees tops The first week of school – was not an option. Now, every afternoon she has long waits in the sun as her parents slowly move on An endless line of cars to take him
“It’s just a mess,” Trisha said.
Her experience is part of a growing trend: yellow school buses becoming an endangered species As districts cut routes and more families are walking their kids to school. In 2022, the majority of American students for the first time I went to school in a private car. in chicago, Bus service to magnet schools The cancellation was made just before the start of the 2023-24 school year. And in Louisville, Kentucky, this year, students Record a song Protesting the disappearance of their bus routes.
The erosion of school bus service is causing problems for parents, who have to spend hours of their workday idling in drop-off lines – a particularly difficult task. Low income parents Those less likely to have flexible schedules or access to remote work.
It can be worse for children. Bus problems are contributing to absenteeism. Experts saySome children literally cannot go to school. Long lines of cars covered the schools Hazardous pollutionPosture a Risk to students’ health And even potential Lowering test scores. And the loss of the bus is changing the school experience for a generation of kids, many of whom will miss what some say is an important (if sometimes chaotic) form of transportation.
Daniel Roberts, a longtime bus driver in Gwinnett County, Georgia, told me that riding the bus is not only a form of transportation, but also a social and emotional lesson. Kids learn how to wait in line, how to be aware of their neighbors, and how to extend a little grace and forgiveness when, for example, the bus is a few minutes late. “I always think of it as a civics education on wheels,” Roberts said.
Bus falls hurt all kids
The first school “bus” was a horse-drawn carriage. took place in the late 19th century Taking far-flung rural children to newly government-compulsory schools. Motorized buses followed in the 1910s, and in 1937, a group at a bus-improvement conference settled on what is now National School Bus Glossy Yellow as the standard color for vehicles.
today, More than 25 million students Ride the bus to school every year. Suburban schools are larger and farther apart, making bus transportation necessary for more students, because Kendra Hurley writes for The Atlantic. students who Attending a magnet school Those outside the neighborhood, or in need of special education services, also often use the bus.
But America’s school bus system has collapsed in the past few years. Districts across the country have faced a driver shortage in recent years, partly due to low pay; They average $20 an hour For hard work. Roberts points out that having out-of-control kids yelling in your ear while you’re trying to maneuver a 35,000-pound vehicle is not only distracting but can be downright dangerous.
Service has worsened due to driver shortages and district budget cuts, which have resulted in declining ridership, By Slate’s Henry Graber. The situation was aggravated by epidemics. And declining ridership, in turn, has led school districts to cut even more services.
For Trisha’s father, Arun Arvindakshan, the loss of bus service means spending a full hour, several times a week, waiting in his car outside his daughter’s school.
“We’re all working parents,” she said. “It’s very difficult for us to find time to do this in the middle of the work day.”
When walking or biking to school Used to be more commonThis is no longer a viable option for many children. Many roads around Trisha’s school have no sidewalks, as they were never designed with walking to school in mind, Arvindakshan said. common problem In suburban areas.
Going to school without a bus Especially difficult for low-income studentswhose parents are less likely to drive during the workday. These students are also more likely to be chronically absent from school, and some experts believe that reduced bus service may be part of the reason.
“If we’re worried about absenteeism — which we are — we’re literally getting rid of something whose job it is to get kids to school,” economist Michael Gottfried. told the Washington Post.
Meanwhile, the bus is a social and educational experience in its own right, where students spend time with kids from different grades and classrooms who they might not see during the school day.
Experiences are not always positive. video of School bus fight has gone viral in recent years. Reader Teresa Bjork told me in an email that growing up on her bus, “there was an older boy who bullied me for attention — he would kick me, rip my bra strap (which boys loved to do back then), call me sexist. obvious name. It was terrifying.”
But a skilled driver can do a lot to affect the bus environment, says Roberts, who has been driving for 16 years. “If you have a good driver, you learn how to be a good rider.”
Some are working to bring back the bus
Buses are also an important part of American education history. In the 1970s and ’80s, courts across the country ordered schools to move black children to majority-white neighborhoods, as a means of integrating schools, and Sometimes vice versa. Busing, as it was called, was met with intense racist backlash, says Zebulon Miletsky, professor of Africana studies at Stony Brook University and its author. Before Living: A History of Boston’s Long Black Freedom Struggle.
but Nicole Hannah-Jones et al argued that the policy was actually highly successful in the South, ensuring that black children in the region had access to racially integrated classrooms and resources concentrated in predominantly white schools. And to some, the school bus is a symbol of efforts to combat school segregation and the bravery of black students at the forefront of those efforts.
Today, nonprofit organizations across the country are working to improve school bus service and make its benefits available to disadvantaged students. In New York City, for example, NYC School Bus Umbrella Service Matt Berlin, the nonprofit’s CEO, is using GPS to allow parents to track their kids’ bus rides and electric buses to reduce pollution and give families a tangible example of fighting climate change. In Los Angeles, the group moves to LA Providing transit pass to students So that they can board the city bus.
Trisha’s parents, meanwhile, got together with a few other families in the neighborhood to arrange a carpool. They created a schedule taking into account all the parents’ work obligations and had a group chat to talk through any changes. For now, it’s working, Arvindakshan said, but he worries for other families, like parents across the street who have four kids in three different schools.
Children, too, are feeling the pressure that life without the bus is putting on their families. “It’s a lot of extra work for both the parents and the kids,” Trisha said. “It’s really hard for everybody.”
