Pa. rejects district's request for two buses

Busing for pupils in unsafe neighborhoods would be up to the Legislature.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- State education officials rejected a request by an elementary school principal, other administrators and parents to help pay for buses so children wouldn't have to walk through a neighborhood where several people have been shot.
Pittsburgh schools Superintendent John Thompson and Yvona Smith, principal of Homewood Elementary, asked the state Department of Education last month to designate some of the routes children walk to school as hazardous and pay for two buses that would be used to ferry pupils to and from the school.
In a one-week period, eight people were shot within blocks of the school. In a letter to Secretary of Education Francis V. Barnes, Thompson wrote that a "crime wave has swept over the area." Pittsburgh police say the shootings are tied to a drug feud.
More than half the school's 422 pupils walk.
But in a letter that district officials received Friday, state education officials said they couldn't subsidize the bus routes.
State law's restriction
State law allows the state Department of Education to pay for buses for pupils only if traffic, not crime, makes walking dangerous. The agency also said it couldn't change what makes walking routes dangerous; only legislators can.
State education officials added, however, that the district could bus -- and pay for -- pupils if officials wished.
Thompson said the district can't afford to bus the pupils. District officials have been reluctant because other schools would likely request the same.
Thompson said the state law should be changed; school board members have begun talking to state lawmakers.
"If somebody gets hurt between now and the time we politic around, everybody's going to have egg on their face," Thompson said.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.