Statement from the American School Bus Council Regarding Impact of High Fuel Prices on School Districts Across the Country
WASHINGTON, July 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Every day, more than 25 million children take an estimated 475,000 school buses to school. For many of those children, the school bus is the only reliable form of transportation to school, thereby making the school bus a vital link to equal education for all students.
Given the current economic environment, many school districts are facing a number of budgetary challenges, including finding ways to pay for rising fuel prices. Some district policy makers are suggesting cuts in service that would require students to walk longer distances to class while others are recommending that school bus service be eliminated entirely.
These solutions may provide short-term relief, but the consequences of these actions not only compromise safety, they shift the burden of these decisions to parents who are facing similar fuel price concerns. They also will likely lead to more cars on the road and increased congestion around school property. As a result, members of the American School Bus Council (ASBC) strongly urge school district policy makers to consider these actions very carefully.
Yellow school buses have been consistently and repeatedly acknowledged by every major safety agency of the federal government as the safest form of transportation for children getting to and from school. If schools begin to take kids off the bus, they are not only reducing safety, but also creating a situation that could limit a student's ability to get to school, which not only will impact attendance and achievement, but also eliminates the only option some families have to get their kids to school. In addition, school buses can also help individual families reduce their own contribution to carbon emissions, as well as decrease congestion on roads leading to schools.
Members of the ASBC understand the difficult choices that each district is forced to make and hope that appropriate solutions can be developed that don't compromise the safety of students or accessibility to education. To that end, members of the ASBC also applaud our elected leaders and other policy makers that are engaging the industry and its customers -- especially working parents -- in their conversations about the issues that are leading to this crisis for our schools.
As the nation's largest public transportation system, the ASBC's school bus fleet runs entirely on local funding without any support from the federal government. As national solutions are developed and debated, we encourage our law makers to support the school bus industry as a means to not only provide safe, reliable and effective transportation to our nation's children, but also a means to reduce individual family's dependence on gas and carbon emissions.
About the American School Bus Counci
lThe American School Bus Council is a coalition of the school transportation industry -- including public and private transportation providers, school bus manufacturers and state officials responsible for pupil transportation. Council members are committed to providing safe, effective, efficient and healthy transportation for the more than 25 million schoolchildren who ride more than 475,000 school buses each day.
The Council's members include NAPT (National Association for Pupil Transportation), NASDPTS (National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services), NSTA (National School Transportation Association), Blue Bird Corp. of Fort Valley, Ga., IC Corporation of Warrenville, Ill., and Thomas Built Buses of High Point, N.C.
