Poland weighs options with no busing

By Robert Guttersohn

rguttersohn@vindy.com

POLAND

For the Poland school district, the cost of busing its high-school students back and forth outweighs its practicality.

The board of education therefore voted March 28 to cut high-school busing in the fall, saving the district $283,195 a year, Superintendent Robert Zorn said.

“That’s just something we can’t afford,” Zorn said.

But parents unable to provide a ride for their student asked how their students would get to school.

Poland school officials will meet about that issue this morning with the contract transportation company Transit Service Inc., which already transports the district’s and most of Mahoning County’s special-education students to and from school.

“We pursued Transit Service to see if they’d contract individually with parents,” Zorn said. “The district would not pay for it.”

At the meeting, the two parties will figure out whether that would be possible.

“We’ve never done a private-pay system,” said Mike Pollifone, supervisor for the transportation company.

Last year, Poland measured high-school ridership per day with 72 being its low and 93 being its high. With the low usage of busing by its students, the district spent $3,000 a year for every high-school student it transported, Zorn said.

Michael Martin, executive director of the National Association for Pupil Transportation, said cutting transportation — which generally makes up to 7 percent of a district’s budget — places more stress on the student.

“Even the Education Department said there is a direct link between attendance and performance,” Martin said in a phone interview. “At the same time, there’s also a direct link between transportation and attendance.”

He said both federal and state government acknowledged busing as being the safest route for students to school. An increase in students driving to school or walking through bad weather or crime-filled neighborhoods increases the danger to students, Martin said.

For that reason, Boardman Local Schools decided against cutting its high-school transportation, which would have saved it $800,000 a year.

“We are trying not do that and probably wouldn’t for the next three years,” said Boardman Superintendent Frank Lazzeri. “There’s a difference between cutting busing in Canfield [which also eliminated high-school busing starting in the fall] or Poland and Boardman. It’s not as dangerous traffic-wise.”

He said if the up to 30 buses that drive students daily to its high school were eliminated, 400 cars would be entering and leaving the parking lot simultaneously instead.

“These are all things we considered during budget talks,” Lazzeri said. “It would be a real nightmare getting in and out of there.”