SCHOOL WATCH : Busing Teachers

Here’s a happy twist on the old story of school busing: Teachers of the San Fernando Valley’s Taft High School took their “back to school” meeting to the South-Central neighborhood that is home for 40% of their students.

The unusual session, which was held at Jefferson High School, was a big help to parents for whom the 20-mile journey to the suburban campus is a hardship.

Every school day shortly after sunrise, 20,000 youngsters board buses that go from congested inner-city campuses to less crowded schools in the San Fernando Valley and on the Westside. Busing is necessary even though the school district uses portable classrooms and other means to create additional seats at crowded campuses. But the distance often discourages students and their parents from participating in the full spectrum of school life.

In this era of education reform, study after study has called for more parental involvement in the schools. But it’s difficult, especially for poor parents, to drive or to take a series of buses to attend nighttime functions at distant schools. Taft’s meeting took the teachers to the parents.

That experience helped the teachers as well. Some admitted they hadn’t been to South-Central before. So they got an introduction to the urban pressures their students often face.

Busing to relieve overcrowding burdens students and parents. But the Taft faculty demonstrated how the gap can be bridged even when home is far from school. More suburban faculties should do the same for students bused from the city.