Taking Bus to School Not Always a Free Ride : Transportation: Faced with dwindling funds, at least seven Orange County districts will charge fees for service when classes resume in the fall.

By CATHERINE GEWERTZ and DANIELLE A. FOUQUETTE

June 14, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The yellow school bus. It’s as potent a symbol of American life as the ethnic rainbow of children’s faces lining its windows. But like the nickel cup of coffee or the 25-cent slice of apple pie, free rides to school could soon become a thing of the past.

Struggling to preserve their academic programs in the face of deep budget cuts, more and more school districts in Orange County and all across California are beginning to charge for bus rides to school, or to revise the eligibility rules so fewer children qualify and fewer bus routes are needed.

A growing number of families, whose children once rode the bus to school for free, are being asked to pay fees ranging from $100 to $450 a year for school bus passes for the first child in the family, more for additional children. In some places, children who were once bused to school must now walk, while others ride their bikes through heavy traffic or crime-infested areas that worry their parents.

A survey of Orange County’s 28 public school districts shows that seven have decided to charge fees when school resumes in the fall--including the Brea-Olinda, Irvine and Saddleback--and four others have fees under consideration. At least 17 will still provide free busing.

“I know money is tight. But if there isn’t a safe route, the kids need to be bused,” said Jan Horton, the mother of first- and third-grade boys, after the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District eliminated the stop where her sons had caught the bus to Mabel Paine Elementary.

Edgar Z. Seal, superintendent of Brea-Olinda Unified School District, which will begin charging students to ride the bus this fall, sadly noted that a 13-year-old girl suffered a dislocated shoulder, cuts and bruises Wednesday when she was struck by a car in Brea as she rode her bicycle home from school.

Seal fears more such incidents when busing fees prompt some financially strapped parents to send their children to school on bikes or afoot.

“Kids will be walking, and it could create unsafe conditions for the students,” he said. “If that happens,” he predicts, “the board will step in to rectify the situation.”

To some, the changing system of school transportation reflects more than a budgetary controversy or an issue of child safety; it seems to toll the loss of the simpler days of their own childhoods.

“When you watched ‘My Three Sons’ or ‘Leave It To Beaver,’ you always saw a school bus pull up in front of their house and pick up the kids. It’s not going to be that way anymore,” said Marc Ecker, assistant to the superintendent in the Fountain Valley School District, where trustees voted last week to begin charging for busing in the fall.

“Busing used to be basic, but now we call it a frill, because there’s simply no money. When we’re making choices between math programs or busing, putting new roofs on (or) fixing heaters, all of a sudden busing becomes a frill.”

Fewer than 50 districts in California charge for busing, but educators and state officials expect that number to grow. They say the movement toward charging for school transportation is driven by dwindling school funding, a situation made even more uncertain by the deepening budget crisis in Sacramento.

“Paying for busing is a constant and growing drain on resources used for the classroom. I would be very surprised if in today’s budget climate, there aren’t a number of schools that have to look at (busing fees) as an alternative,” said Kern County Schools Supt. Kelly F. Blanton, the immediate past president of the Assn. of County Superintendents of Schools.

In Orange County, some districts are increasing the fees dramatically for the 1992-93 school year: Saddleback Valley Unified more than doubled its rates, and Los Alamitos nearly doubled its own.

But if districts’ thinning billfolds weren’t incentive enough for them to consider busing fees, they can find additional encouragement in a March ruling by the state Supreme Court, which gave a constitutional blessing to the practice.

Newport-Mesa Unified charged busing fees for eight years, then halted abruptly in 1988 to await the outcome of a legal challenge to the practice. Backed by the state Supreme Court’s decision this year, the district reinstated its fees for the 1992-93 year.

Some say this Supreme Court ruling could herald the end of free, public school busing all across California.

“The fear is that now that it’s legal for districts to charge, the money the state has given the districts for that purpose will be earmarked for something else,” said Ron L. Kinney, director of transportation for the state Department of Education.

Indeed, that very issue surfaced last week as Sacramento legislators discussed ways to bridge the state’s budget shortfall, said Mike Kilbourn, director of special services for the Orange County Department of Education. Discussion centered on providing state subsidies only for disabled students--a service required by law--and pupils who have extremely long trips to school, such as those in sparsely populated areas.

Such a move--only in the preliminary discussion phases, Kilbourn emphasized--would cut up to $100 million from the state’s annual $343-million transportation subsidy to local districts, leaving them to find another funding source or slash their busing programs.

Even the current subsidy does not come close to covering what districts must spend to provide busing. Kinney said that in the average California school district, the state funds less than half the district’s cost.

Huntington Beach City School District is luckier than most. Jerry Buchanan, assistant superintendent for business there, said the state subsidy takes care of about $400,000 of the annual $650,000 bill for busing 1,200 students. Hoping to recover some of its costs, the district is weighing a possible bus-pass fee of $150 to $160 a year.

“It’s a tough one for us,” Buchanan said. “Free busing has been a way of life, but it will soon be gone.”

Other districts have attempted to solve the problem differently. Bob A. Wigginton is director of transportation for Apple Valley Unified School District, where the state pays only $700,000 of the $2-million yearly cost.

To pare back ridership, Wigginton said, the San Bernardino County district has begun enforcing distance requirements that make children eligible for bus rides: one mile from school for elementary students, two miles for middle school students and three miles for high school students. Some who used to catch bus rides are now on their own, he said.

Wigginton, who is also president of the California Assn. of School Transportation Officials, said many of his colleagues have begun taking even more drastic steps, eliminating all transportation not mandated by law, such as that for special-education students.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the state’s biggest with 625,000-plus students, did just that in the early 1980s, staggering under the cost and confronted with a parent population unwilling to pay a fee.

Huntington Beach Union did likewise in 1990. Some Fullerton School District board members have proposed abolishing busing altogether. Brea-Olinda is considering eliminating it for high school students who live within four miles of school.

But eliminating busing altogether creates worries for the safety of children who must traverse busy streets to get to school.

“It bothers me, because they’re getting down to dollars and cents, but losing sight of the safety issue,” Wigginton said. “If they don’t get to school safely, we’re not going to be able to teach them anything at all.”

While fee proposals and other transportation changes draw angry reactions from parents at most school board meetings, some have expressed another viewpoint.

Judy Miner, a member of the board of Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District, said some parents have told her that while there is an “emotional attachment to the symbol” of the little yellow school bus, they also remember those long, snowy walks to school as a “character-building experience.”

And even though some parents are unhappy about having to dip into their bank accounts to pay for busing, they prefer that to seeing their children’s math or English classes cut back, said Carleen Wing Chandler, director of budget and finance for Capistrano Unified.

Brenda Glasby, whose son is a first-grader at Mabel Paine in Yorba Linda, said she has resigned herself to driving her child to school so he won’t have to cross busy Bastanchury Road. Her district eliminated her son’s stop from the school bus route.

“I don’t see how they can cut any more programs,” she said. “This is probably their only option.”

Helaine Olen contributed to this report.

Where Busing Has a Price

Orange County’s school districts are increasingly beginning to charge a fee to bus students to school. Here is how the various districts break down on the fee-for-busing question:

DISTRICTS THAT PROVIDE FREE BUSING

* Anaheim City

* Anaheim Union

* Buena Park

* Centralia

* Cypress

* Fullerton Joint Union

* Garden Grove Unified

* Huntington Beach Union (special education students only; no busing for other students)

* Laguna Beach Unified

* La Habra City

* Lowell Joint