More elementary and middle school-aged Washoe County children have a reliable ride to school, thanks to expanded bus services starting Tuesday, Feb. 20.
The school district says it’s restoring smaller “walking zones,” the radius around a school that determines whether or not a student is eligible to take the bus. For elementary schoolers, the walking zone has returned to one mile. It’s now two miles for middle schoolers.
School board trustee Adam Mayberry told 2 News Nevada on Wednesday that the restored services are thanks to historic legislative funding for schools.
“Our bus drivers got nearly a 50% increase in their pay, and that really allowed us to retain and hire more bus drivers,” he said. He later added, “They started off at just over $14 an hour. Today, they’re making just over $22 an hour, and that’s the starting pay.”
The district was forced to cut back on bus services during pre-pandemic budget “crises,” and post-pandemic driver shortages, according to the school district’s chief operating officer.
“There were weeks of every month that entire groups or areas of the school district didn’t receive any transportation,” Adam Searcy said.
The intervention department, a team in charge of supporting at-risk students, says unreliable transportation had a direct impact on student safety and success.
“When the walk zones were expanded, we started to see increase in tardies and increasing chronic absenteeism,” said department director Rechelle Murillo.
Students who are chronically absent tend to have a harder time in school, and face greater dropout rates, according to Murillo. She said that the department hopes restoring expanded bus services has the opposite impact – helping more students get to the classroom every day on-time.
“When we see students attending, they have better grades. They have better relationships with their peers. They have better social-emotional outcomes.”
As the district restores services to 2,600 students, children who already ride the bus may see some changes to pick-up and drop-off times or bus stop locations. The district says families can see how their ride to school is impacted by visiting https://www.washoeschools.net/transportation.
