Round Rock School Officials Mull Cutting Bus Service For Several Students

ROUND ROCK, TX -- Parents are upset with Round Rock ISD following potential elimination of school bus routes that may force their children to walk to school, according to a televised media report.

The school district recently deemed about 10 bus-service routes no longer “hazardous,” and is considering cutting the runs from the schedule, according to a KXAN-TV report. The district provides bus rides to school children living at least two miles from school, unless they live on a so-called hazardous route.

District spokesman Corey Ryan confirmed the district was examining routes that might be eliminated. But he insisted the decision to cut them altogether hasn’t been made yet.

“We have not removed routes,” he wrote in an email to Patch. “We are evaluating 10 routes for next school year, but no changes have been made.”

The television station shadowed parents on one of the sidewalks children may be forced to use to gauge the walking route’s safety level, while one of the women pushed a baby stroller.

“It’s really dangerous,” Mireya Ortega, one of the people profiled in the news piece, said in giving her verdict.

Parents are wondering what prompted district officials to consider eliminating routes on which their children depend to get to school. They wonder what made the routes “hazardous” in the first place and how they got off that designated list of routes requiring bus transportation.

The school bus route that once included a stop at Las Brisas apartment complex is one such stop, the station found. No longer considered dangerous given sidewalks improvements, the site might no longer qualify for school bus service.

The district considers areas with a lack of sidewalks or amid a construction zone are among the factors making a route “hazardous.”

Ortega said she’d happily drive her child to school if bus service ends at Las Brisas, but that option is not as easy for other families.

“There are parents who rely on the school bus,” she told KXAN.

She worries about driver inattention, especially among motorists not used to seeing children walking en masse en route to school.

“Some of those cars don’t know what they’re doing and then there’s kids that are walking and sometimes you don’t even see them because of the traffic,” Ortega said.

While the district has re-classfied the 10 or so routes once deemed “hazardous,” it still operates about 100 such routes, the station noted.

Responding to parent complaints, district officials have scheduled a pair of meetings with concerned parents next.. During such meetings, district officials will address questions and further explain their reasons for eliminating the bus routes and convey public concerns to the district board of trustees.

The first meeting took place Jan. 4 at Stony Point High School. Two more such meetings are scheduled for next week:

• The second meeting is scheduled at the Round Rock High School 700 building cafeteria, 300 Lake Creek Drive, beginning at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 9;
• The final meeting at which parents can air their concerns is scheduled at the McNeil High School lecture hall, 5720 McNeil Road in Austin, starting at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 11.