Free Ride Is Over : Education: More school districts are charging for bus transportation. Parents grumble about coming up with the fares; some fear for safety of children who must walk or ride bikes to class.

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

In leafy suburbs and crowded cities, generations of Americans have counted on free bus transportation. But the children of baby boomers come toting their books into a different world, a world much shorter on money.

Struggling to preserve their core academic programs in the face of deep budget cuts, more and more school districts in Southern California are beginning to charge for bus rides, encouraged by a recent state Supreme Court ruling permitting such fees.

Next fall, bus rides in the Conejo Valley Unified School District in Ventura County will cost $450 a year for the first student in the family, more for additional students. In the Riverside Unified School District, the fee will be about $235. Larger families can pay dearly: A clan with four kids in Saddleback Valley Unified schools in Orange County will have to cough up $912 a year for busing.

Some districts, such as Apple Valley Unified in San Bernardino County, have revised the busing eligibility rules so fewer students qualify and fewer routes are needed. Some children who were bused to school must now walk. Other districts have followed the lead of Los Angeles and San Diego and dropped busing, or are considering doing so.

Some parents complain about the financial hardship of paid busing, and others worry that children on foot or bicycles will be endangered as they brave busy intersections and rough neighborhoods.

To some observers, the trend in school transportation signifies more than a monetary controversy or an issue of child safety; it seems to ring in a sense of loss and a yearning for the simpler days of their 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 free bus rides were recently eliminated.

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

Of 28 districts in Orange County, six will charge fees when school opens next fall, and five are considering it. The remaining 17 districts plan to continue free rides. A recent survey in San Bernardino County found that one-third of the districts will charge fees or are thinking about it, and the remaining two-thirds plan to continue busing without charge.

Busing is still free in most of California, but educators and state officials expect that to change. 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.

But if districts’ thinning billfolds incline them to charge for busing, they can find an additional motive in a March ruling by the state Supreme Court, which gave a constitutional blessing to the practice.

That was all the districts needed to hear.

Riverside Unified was quick to respond: Busing fees that were in effect from 1981 to 1989 will be reinstated for grades 7-12 next fall. Conejo Valley, which never charged, approved its $450 fee one month after the court decision.

Some say the ruling could herald the breakdown of free school busing in neighborhoods statewide.

“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 now be earmarked for something else,” said Ron L. Kinney, director of transportation for the state Department of Education.

Indeed, that topic was raised recently as legislators discussed ways to shave the budget, 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 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 it costs to provide busing. Kinney said that in the average California school district, the state funds less than half the district’s cost.

Simi Valley Unified School District is luckier than most--it has to cover less than a third of its annual $1.6-million transportation bill. The state picks up the rest. Still, the district’s $470,000 share is burdensome enough that it is studying the option of imposing a fee.

Other districts have attempted to solve the problem differently. Bob A. Wigginton is director of transportation for the Apple Valley Unified School District, where the state pays only $700,000 of the $2-million yearly cost. To pare ridership, he said, the district has begun enforcing distance requirements that make students eligible for bus rides: one mile from school for elementary students, two miles for middle schoolers and three miles for high school students. Some who used to catch bus rides are now on their own, he said.

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

Los Angeles Unified School District, the state’s biggest with 640,000 students, did just that in the early 1980s, staggering under the cost and confronted with parents unwilling to pay a fee. Only an eighth of its students now get bus rides, primarily special education pupils and those in voluntary magnet or integration programs. San Diego Unified does likewise.

Romoland Elementary, a small district in Riverside County, saved $200,000 last year--more than 10% of its annual budget--by wiping out non-mandated busing, said Supt. Roland Skumawitz. Sprawling Grossmont Unified, east of San Diego, where some students live 50 miles from school, charges pupils 50 cents each way, but is considering dropping busing in areas where public transportation or car pools could be used.

Eliminating busing creates worries for the safety of children who must traverse busy streets.

“If they don’t get to school safely, we’re not going to be able to teach them anything at all,” Wigginton said.

Jan Horton, the mother of first- and third-grade boys, complained that the Placentia-Yorba Linda School District recently eliminated the bus stop where her sons had caught the bus.

“I know money is tight, but if there isn’t a safe route, the kids need to be bused,” Horton said.

Edgar Z. Seal, superintendent of Brea-Olinda Unified School District, which will begin charging students to ride the bus in the fall, noted that a 13-year-old girl suffered a dislocated shoulder, cuts and bruises recently when a car struck her in Brea as she rode her bicycle home from school. He predicted more such incidents when busing fees begin.

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

Even though some parents are angry at having to dip into their bank accounts to pay for busing, they prefer to do that than to see their children’s math or English classes cut back, said Carleen Wing Chandler, director of budget and finance for Orange County’s 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 we will not have to cross busy Bastanchury Road.

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

Times staff writers Tom Gorman and Tracey Kaplan contributed to this story, along with correspondents Danielle A. Fouquette, Helaine Olen and Stephanie Stassel.