What if we didn't have school buses?
What if students got to school by whatever means possible —foot, bicycle, roller skates, a ride from a parent or neighbor? What if a sixth-grade class couldn't take a field trip to a museum without a bunch of parents volunteering to drive? How would the Fulton Steamers football team get to Ottawa's Gould Stadium for a showdown with the Marquette Academy Crusaders? How would the Streator Marching Bulldogs get to the University of Illinois to compete?
Such questions are at the extreme end of the spectrum, but with the state looking to do away with any transportation funding for public school districts, it's safe to say all options should be on the table. Local budgets are stretched thin as it is, and the state's inability to make payments is only making things worse. If the next step is an outright end to a funding stream, no one should be surprised.
Obviously school buses will not be going away. Aside from the heavy investment in building fleets to current levels, there is the more practical matter of getting students to the classroom. Unlike Chicago and its immediate suburbs, the Illinois Valley, like most of the rest of the state, does not have an extensive public transportation network to fall back on. The big yellow buses simply have to run or kids won't get to school.
Wallace Elementary School District Superintendent Mike Matteson last week said it might not be until the end of May or even later that school boards will learn whether the funding will remain. It must not bother anyone in Springfield that school districts would have a matter of days to scrape together a plan before starting a new fiscal year.
My oldest has ridden a bus to school since he was in 3-year-old preschool at Lincoln Elementary in Ottawa, even though we lived just a few blocks away. We since have moved, and now, as a second-grader, I walk him to a spot in our neighborhood every morning — well, the mornings we aren't sprinting —and wave as he's driven away. I feel a slave to nothing so much as the 8:18 a.m. bus call.
Continue reading "Imagine schools without buses."
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