A new law means thousands of area students will get bus rides to school this year.
That includes Lake County where the School Board just shortened the distance children have to walk to school. With all the extra bus routes there is now concern there will not be enough buses.
Marc Dodd was a teacher in 2013, when the Lake County School Board voted to cut busing for 4,000 students who lived within 2 miles of their schools.
“I heard from many parents who were working parents and stressed out trying to find transportation to and from school for their students,” said Dodd.
This week he was part of the School Board which voted to spend more than $300,000 to restore buses for nearly a thousand elementary students living more than a mile from their school.
“The question now, is whether the school district will have enough buses.
Transportation officials say the plan will require 12 new bus routes. They’ve ordered eight new buses, but they aren’t expected to arrive until November.
“The challenge we are facing in Lake County are capital dollars, that we just don’t have the funding available to be able to provide those extra buses at this point,” said Dodd.
So the district will rely on its spare fleet, buses usually used for transporting teams to games, with the highest use during football season, right at the same time as the shortage.
Dodd says transportation officials promise him they will repair busses all summer long to have a full fleet
But, busing to after school programs like the Boys and Girls Clubs appear destined for the chopping block.
What’s still unclear, how many students might be added to bus routes because of unsafe walking conditions under a new law that went into effect this month?
Early estimates show it could be as many as 2,000 Lake County students. In Lake County, Dave D’Marko, News 13.
Officials will be meeting Wednesday, July 29 at 8:30 a.m. at the Mt. Dora Community Center to look at which schools have the most dangerous paths to school and should get busing.