The Oak Ridge school system stopped giving bus rides from Linden Elementary School to Girls Inc. and the Boys and Girls Club this year, and attendance at the two nonprofit organizations has fallen by more than 100 children, executives said Monday.
Now, the executives are working with school officials to find a way to get the students from Linden to the clubs each day.
One potential solution: First Student, the city’s school bus contractor, has offered to give the students rides for a total of $5,984 per year, or $2,992 per club, Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Tom Bailey told school board members Monday.
The cost could be much higher—possibly $32,000—if a separate bus route were added, Bailey said.
In this case, a separate route would not be added. Instead, the buses would deviate from their normal routes.
Bailey said the rides would be provided under a contract between First Student and the clubs; they would not be provided by the school system.
Still, it wasn’t immediately clear if the nonprofit organizations would accept the proposal. Carol Mullane, executive director of Girls Inc. of Oak Ridge, said the proposal would about double her transportation budget.
Until this year, Oak Ridge school buses had given rides to the Linden Elementary students—an average of 55 each day to the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Clinch Valley and roughly 20 per day at Girls Inc.
Children at Robertsville Middle School and Willow Brook Elementary School, which are in the same district as the clubs, either ride buses or walk there, while children at other schools are picked up by club vans.
School officials said the transportation across district lines, even if it was only a few miles, violated school board policy.
After some parents complained last year, school officials investigated and determined they had to enforce school policy. Officials said the buses were dropping off children at the clubs first and then going back and picking up other students.
However, officials waited until this year to start enforcing the policy to avoid unnecessary disruptions.
Enforcement of the policy this year apparently caught at least some parents and nonprofit leaders by surprise, although Bailey said reminders were sent out, including to parents.
Donyell Jones, chief professional officer at the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Clinch Valley in Oak Ridge, said his club serves a total of about 164 Linden Elementary children, including the 55 bused each day from Linden. The club, which helps at-risk youth, among other things, serves about 34 percent of Linden students, Jones said.
Jones said a small handful of parents have transferred their children to Willow Brook Elementary School, and the number of Linden students participating in Boys and Girls Club activities is down to about seven.
“We have to think about where are they going,†said Ann Likens, the club’s chief volunteer officer.
Meanwhile, the number of Linden Elementary students attending Girls Inc. has fallen from about 20 to seven, said Carol Mullane, executive director of Girls Inc.
School officials said the they recognize the value of the clubs, and Mullane and Jones have a tentative meeting scheduled with Bailey on Wednesday morning to continue discussing the issue.
Sam Hopwood says
This is outrageous. Another classic example of Bailey and the BOE socking it to the disadvantaged students. Come on 12/31/12.
Sam Hopwood
Ellen Smith says
Two of the Linden School afternoon buses go past the Boys&Girls Club and Girls Inc. on their way to drop off kids who live in the Linden attendance zone. It seems to me it ought to be possible to carry kids to the after-school programs without any additional cost.
anomanous says
So 20 children to Girls Inc. and 55 children to the Boys and Girls club that’s 75 children. That fills a bus with just them. The school tried to add them to buses last year. My daughter made me pick her up at school every day because they had 6 children to a seat that is made for a maximum of 3 and is cramped at 3. Adding 75 children to a bus and sitting 6 to a seat makes the bus unsafe. Adding another bus for these children would be cost prohibitive for the school. Do you want taxes to go up to pay for a bus or should they let a teacher go. If the clubs have to get the children there let them figure out how to do it.
I also don’t like the statement made that they hope the teachers don’t mind waiting with the children until they can be picked up by the clubs. It sounds like a threat either bus them here or we will make you watch the children for an extra hour until we can get them.
MW224 says
Then why wait until
Angi Agle says
It was announced in December 2011; the clubs were given nearly eight months’ grace period to find another solution. A reminder went out a couple of weeks before school started, but that was NOT the first notice.
The problem is, if policy is not followed, it leaves the school system open to requests or demands from any other entity serving students after school. We very much want to find a solution, but the easiest one would be for everyone who is concerned about it to write a check to the Boys’ Club or Girls Inc. and specify that it’s to be used for transportation. If 300 people gave $10 to each agency, the problem would be solved.
MW224 says
Sorry Angi, I disagree. As a parent, we received one of the robocalls and e-mails that Roger Ward sends out two weeks before the change and we, just as other parents had to do were scrambling to get coverage. If the clubs were updated, the parents weren’t, that is a failure of timely and proper communication. I agree if policy is not followed it is a problem, but I see kids that don’t even attend linden roaming the halls and show up on field trips, I see some children held accountable to proper dress code and others not. If the school was interested in finding a solution, you send out your robo call-email service that harrasses parents over 20 cents past due to the lunchroom earlier in the summer to get parental input and give proper notice. Either enforce it all, or nothing. Don’t pick and choose. Like I said, scratch the unused Amphitheater or some other funding, then it could be paid for, but how did this decision have to do with funding? Was the real reason not to increase willow brook enrollment or ECC…which wait, the funding goes to the SCHOOL? I think that the school administration members that care to have working parents support the schools in ways much more than just sending our kids to our appropriate district should take a pay cut and defer a percentage of their salary to pay for the extra school bus for after school care or take all excess from ECC minus the staff overhead be allocated to transportation.
Sam says
Six children to a seat??? That would set a Guinness World Record if it could be done.