Some East Valley Students Forced To Walk To School
THERMAL – It’s back to school day, but not for some students in the eastern Coachella Valley.
“We don’t have a ride to school, that’s why we didn’t go to school today. We don’t have anybody to take us if the bus doesn’t pick us up,” says Sonia Orozco, a Desert Mirage High School student.
Parents picketed in front of Desert Mirage High and Toro Canyon Middle School to protest the Coachella Unified School District’s recent decision. The district eliminated two bus routes and that has many parents in this Thermal community in a predicament. Many are farmworkers who leave for work early in the morning.
“In the fields, they go in around six and they come out pretty late. They can’t take us. There’s no way,” says Orozco.
The decision comes at a time when school district’s across the state are finding new ways to cut costs. In a letter to parents, the Transportation department says they will follow an administrative regulation which states, “Students who reside beyond maximum walking distance as defined… shall be eligible for transportation service to the school of their attendance area…” The maximum walking distance for middle school students is one and three-quarter miles, for high school, two miles. They live a mile and a half away.
“They are depending on this bus, so that’s the thing. Some people go to work and they can’t walk them all the…they have to work. If they don’t work, well, no money for food, so that’s why everyone is mad,” says parent Celia Ruiz.
One of the many things parents are concerned about is, of course, the safety of their children. Right here many students cross the street, you can see there is no crosswalk. Even after they make it across, they still have more than a mile to go, with no sidewalks.
“A lot of accidents. I don’t think recently with the kids but a lot of people have died here. ‘do you think that might happen?’ Yes,” says Ruiz.
“There’s nobody to walk them across the street, they have to walk on their own and cars come so fast that they take the stop, and kids you know how they are, they’re just running around,” Ruiz says.
An official with the school district tells us that they are simply enforcing the district policy now because of budget cuts. Eliminating the two routes saves $120,000and they are looking towards even more cuts in the near future.
