If anyone is pumping Diesel fuel at the gas station these days, they have seen peaks of $4.50 a gallon. Experts are predicting that could hit $5 a gallon very soon. Which means that when contracts are up on the fuel contracts that the BOE has in the next year, sticker shock will be an understatement. Which is why the BOE needs to reevaluate its school bus routes and plan for better fuel efficiencies.
Part of that planning process had better include the parents. For some reason in the last decade or so, parents have collectively decided that door to door kid transportation is necessary. Whatever happened to kids walking to school? Or walking to the bus stop?
Suburban thinking since the 80’s has been short on community building. All those decisions to close neighbourhood schools, exempt sidewalk requirements for all streets, and subsidize new housing in rural areas are now coming home to roost.
Money Magazine Reports:
How soaring fuel prices hurt kids
Across the nation, school districts are slashing spending on teachers, books and computers as filling up the school bus tank gets more expensive.
By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: April 10, 2008: 1:32 PM EDTNEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The school buses in Dubuque County, Iowa, travel 4,900 miles each day ferrying kids to and from class. That’s the equivalent of driving across the entire U.S. and halfway back again.
The diesel these busses run on has jumped 35 percent over the last year. The extra money paid to fuel the busses must come out of the local school district’s general fund - money it would prefer to spend on other things.
“It’s computers, it’s teachers, it’s you name it,” said Bob Hingtgen, director of transportation at Western Dubuque County Community School District, located 65 north of Iowa City. “The pie is only so big. If a bigger slice is going to transportation, it leaves a smaller slice for everything else.”
Hingtgen said the district spent $50,000 more fueling its 80 busses this year than it did last year, or roughly what he said it would cost for two teachers starting salaries.
Although the effect of the rising price of fuel on school funding hasn’t gotten much attention from national school administration organizations, administrators working in school systems across the country are already feeling the impact.
Being proactive here might save a few dollars, but also bring some long term strategic thinking in what policies should change to adapt to higher transportation costs.
