All about bussing

by Holly Dressel

Bussing, especially long bus rides for rural or suburban students, is a concomitant of the policy of school consolidation.  However, consolidation, that is, closing small schools and favouring large ones, is a politically- and economically-based movement that has become widely discredited since the late 1980s (see Appendix 4).  Although New Frontiers is claiming economic need as the reason both for closure and for increased busing, the actual costs of increased bus transportation are themselves considered to be “the most understudied issue in the consolidation debate.”  [see Kieran Killeen and John Sipple, School Consolidation and Transportation Policy, Cornell University, April 24, 2000, www.ruralchallengepolicy.org/Killeen-sipple.pdf ].

A recent article in the Rural Education Issue Digest points out that “despite the magnitude and cost of the school transportation system, a surprising shortage of information exists about the bussing of children, apart from government safety figures.  Very little has been done to examine the effect of this massive system on school budgets, instructional costs or, most important, the well-being of the children who spend so many hours each school day on those buses.” [Beth Spence, “Long School Bus Rides: Their Effect on School Budgets, Family Life and Student Achievement”; see also Caroline Hendrie, “Dearth of Reliable Data on Bus Costs Makes State Comparisons Tough,” Education Week, 27 November, 1996] .

Although made by a U.S. researcher, this statement holds true in Canada as well.  Nonetheless, by figuring in the general increase of transportation costs just in terms of labour and fuel since the 1980s, it is estimated by Killeen and Sipple’s paper mentioned above that, “the growth in transportation costs [that accompanies the closure of small, rural schools] consistently exceeds enrolment increases and the number of children riding buses.” 

That would mean that the costs of bussing remaining children to faraway schools will actually cost more per student than if those students had been entirely lost to the board.  These additional costs to New Frontiers, with virtually all of the children in the Franklin and Howick catchments now looking at 100 to 250% increases in bus rides, have nowhere been figured into the equation.  It is clear from even the most crude data available that the Board would not lose any money by keeping these schools open, once transport costs are considered.  Of course, what we really need are reliable studies comparing per-pupil transportation costs before and after school district consolidation, but as yet, none exist, either in Canada or the United States.

We have also been assured by DG Ken Robertson that, should our youngest children have to be bussed away from their homes and communities, every effort will be made to design bus routes that will keep time on the buses as short as possible.  However, a discussion with Robert Ness, the operator of the bus company providing such services in the Valley, reveals that the only routing efforts ever made with him by the Board are to maximize efficiency and keep down costs, never to shorten time spent on the bus.  Ness says to make each route economically viable, they have to have 50 children on each bus, which naturally will lead to some children being on the bus for at least 90 minutes, likely much more, given that many children who live only five miles from the school are already on the bus for more than 45 minutes, and Ormstown is more than 20 miles away.

Although many more studies need to be done, there are around a dozen available, made between the late 1990s and the present.  Only one study, done almost 35 years ago, claimed no appreciable difference in health, performance or family life for children with long bus rides, but the students selected for this very small cohort were on buses for a maximum of 45 minutes, and often for as little as ten.  [see Dan A. White, “Does Busing Harm Elementary Pupils?” Phi Delta Kappan 4:192-93 (1971)]  Dan White’s study was done in the context of the school busing controversy surrounding racial integration into American schools, which also partially explains the lack of the kinds of studies one would expect on such an important educational component.  As researcher Belle Zars wrote in an article for the Vermont Rural School and Community Trust in 1998, “no researcher wanted to wade into a situation where their work could be used indirectly to promote or quash school desegregation.”  [Belle Zars, “Long Rides, Tough Hides: Enduring Long School Bus Rides,” Randolph, VT, www.ruraledu.org/zars_busing.htm] .

West Virginia and Quebec have had studies done on what long bus rides do to students and their families. West Virginia’s public hearings testimony points to far less participation in extra-curricular activities and an avoidance of enriched or higher-level classes because there is no time to do homework. Other students complained of an almost total lack of family life or time for any sort of recreation.  In Quebec, Michael Fox has explained in the Rural Educator in 1996 that the costs of long transportation, involving fuel and maintenance as well as wages, “has become a costly and socially questionable activity” which puts the entire question “of the overall benefits of large, regional school systems” into focus.  [see Fox, “Rural School Transportation as a Daily Constraint in Students’ Lives,” Rural Educator 17(2):22 (1996)] .

Time children spend on buses is “empty time,” and may in fact be frightening for small children and dangerous to their health, due to the large amounts of diesel fumes that are regularly measured inside school buses. [see “What Parents Need to Know About Diesel School Buses: If your kids are riding a diesel bus to school, chances are they’re being exposed to unacceptable cancer risk,” Natural Resources Defense Council, www.nrdc.org/air/transportaion/qbus.asp]  Fox found that any travel time more than 30 minutes a day has effects on the family as a whole and their ability to spend time together.  Moreover, “the time devoted to the travel constraint causes fatigue, so that [students] are not as attentive in school, nor are they as willing to put the required time and effort into their homework assignments.”  Finally, parents question putting children into school for five hours a day when a further three to four are required just to get them there and back, and decide to make other arrangements for their education, thus further weakening any school board refusing to provide community-based schooling.

Two families have already made plans to move out of Howick and Franklin school district in search of schools that will be close to their homes; to Ontario in both cases.  No studies exist that would enable decision makers know exactly to what extent these lengthy school bus rides will inspire parents to withdraw from the New Frontiers School Board, the public school system, or the community, depending on the options available to them.  However, it is so likely to be significant that the towns affected have rallied in a massive way around the schools and are now allying with each other to try to save their tax base and futures. 

In fact, the action of destroying even two of the few towns in the Chateauguay Valley will have a domino effect on all their neighbours, French and English alike.  People who choose to leave Franklin for school bus reasons may also be leaving Franklin industries, such as Leahy Orchards, the largest employer in the whole Valley.   The reverberations from the loss of communities, workers and industries will echo up and down the entire valley, affecting every town’s access to residents, taxes, employers and future prosperity.

Studies have shown that children who ride these exhausting, noisy and often very rough-riding buses have an average wait of almost 14 minutes lining up to board and leave the buses in the school yard, on top of waits of 10 to 20 minutes for their particular bus.  The work of economist Mark Witham in Australia, a country that, like Canada, also consists of sparsely-populated and far-flung towns and farms, points out that all School Board plans for bus transport assume that “children’s time has no economic value.”  [Witham, The Economies of (Not) Closing Small Rural Schools.  Paper presented at a Ph.D symposium for candidates and supervisors.  A Focus on Rural Issues, Townsville, Queensland, Australia, July 1997.  See pp. 1, 5, 7-10 ERIC Document Reproduction Service, No. ED 415 036] .

If an adult had to commute three hours each day, he would be considered negligent of his health and sanity, and all his friends and relatives would expect him to quit and find another job.  But children have lives to live, skills to learn and daily joys that are being destroyed by an outdated school consolidation system that places no value on their lives.  Witham says the situation should be considered as “child exploitation” by the Boards involved, in the service of their economic goals.   

As Appendix 4 points out, the economy of scale argument that closure and bussing were created to serve is an illusion.  In Australia, Canada and the U.S., data shows clearly that “costs are not reduced, but redistributed by school closure.”  In the case of the Chateauguay Valley in particular, it is also becoming clear that the numbers arguments, on which the closure of our three elementary schools are being based, are not only faulty, but false.  Hard documentation has emerged [New Frontiers School Board minutes] which show that English populations have fallen not by close to 20%, as New Frontiers has claimed, but by only 8.4% in the whole school board area, since 1998.  This is added to the Board’s intentional shrinking of Franklin’s catchment area over the past 20 years.  The two as yet unconsidered figures are making the supposed loss of student population, on which the economic closure argument is based, look very weak indeed, especially when viewed in terms of the mini-baby boom of 17 pre-kindergarten pupils lined up for entry to our school next year.

Our School Board Commissioners need to realize that Franklin parents agree that their children already spend more than enough time on school buses.  They will not put them through any more of this type of suffering so that New Frontiers can claim a savings on paper, which is highly debatable in fact.  It is becoming very clear that New Frontiers will not save money by closing Franklin, partly due to increased transportation costs, which have not been factored into their economic claims, but primarily because of the serious loss of student population caused by our rejection of the increased transportation times their project for closure will entail.