School Bus Cuts in Desert Anger Parents

A cutback in school bus service in the eastern Antelope Valley has students walking desert roads, school officials looking for remedies and parents threatening retaliation at the polls.

Wilsona District School Supt. Chet Caldeira said Friday that about 300 students have lost bus service in the 1,850-student elementary school district in semi-rural Lake Los Angeles as a result of a school board decision in July.

The board voted unanimously to cut the number of buses in service from 18 to 9 after the Antelope Valley School Transportation Agency said it would double the district’s annual fee, which was $270,000 last year, for the same level of service this year.

The directors of the agency--a bus service run by a consortium of eight school districts--decided that Wilsona was not paying enough for bus service in the remote community.

But Wilsona school officials said budget constraints did not permit new transportation expenses. As part of the cutback, they reduced the number of bus stops and increased the minimum distance for children to be eligible for bus service from half a mile away from school to at least three-quarters of a mile.

But during the first days of school this week, outraged parents protested at district headquarters that some children must walk more than a mile to school or to bus stops. They said the isolation and severe heat, cold and winds of the desert endanger the children.

“It’s inconceivable to believe that a school board or anyone with responsibility can allow children to be subject to such conditions,” said Victor Lyons, a parent of two children who have an eight-block walk.

“I don’t care what your budget problem is, the last thing you should ever consider is cruel and unusual treatment of children.”

School board candidate Richard Foster said the board’s insensitivity on the bus issue will be an important factor in the November school board campaign.

Three of five seats are up for election. Two incumbents--Louis Easterwood and Sue Stokka--are running for reelection. Foster and fellow challengers Michael Brown and Frank Donaldson also are on the Nov. 7 ballot.

Supt. Caldeira said he hopes to come up with a plan next week to improve bus service by increasing the number of stops and the number of students that buses carry. He said the cutback resulted from a decision to protect funds used for instruction.

School board member Maurice Kunkel said the growth of the district, which has quadrupled in student population since 1982, has created budget pressures.

“We just can’t spend a half a million dollars on transportation,” he said. “It’s nice to provide bus transportation for everyone, but this was the lesser of all the other evils.”