Busing Students | Video

Kristin Clouston | 1/29/2013

It takes some Bismarck students an hour and a half to get home from school on the bus and parents want that to change. The new school boundaries will mean longer bus rides for even more kids, but the district says it`s working on the problem.

Parents may not have been able to change the board`s mind about school boundaries, but are asking it to please address school bussing.

"On the way home from Rita Murphy to their home on Shoal Drive for an hour and 30 minutes. That`s like driving to Jamestown every single day. We drive by Sunrise, we also drive sort of close to Miller and I just feel as if the buses are so over-crowded the way they are. My 115 pound little boy has to sit on a bus, three to a seat, for an hour and a half," said parent Dara Lein.

BPS Transportation Director Darin Scherr says he understands the parent`s concerns. "Those upper grades and elementary school. They`re getting to a size where maybe three to a seat is not do-able. What that means is additional resources, so we`ll take a look at that too, and we`ll put that in front of the board. If we want to shorten up bus routes, if we want to put less kids on the bus, is to add more buses. If that means adding 10 more that`s a third of our fleet."

He plans to address the bussing issues at the next school board meeting.

"Our goal is to take all of those and put them in front of the board and some of them have some cost implications, to see what we need to do with the students. Historically we haven`t done transportation for high school students in the city. But does that change now with the freshmen and likely it will, but that;s going to add some cost to it."

He says his department has been working on the issue for a while and is also having a formal study done on the best ways to bus students.

If you don`t want your child bussed across town you can put in for a transfer to a closer school, just know transfers won`t get to ride the bus.

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