School Districts In The Red, Cut Yellow Rides

MORONGO VALLEY – Education’s budget cuts are slicing into the safety of your children. About 23 percent of the nation’s school districts are eliminating bus routes, forcing students to walk to class. Some local parents fear the walking path to school isn’t safe.

Gary Horn’s three young sons rely on the bus to get to and from school, but education budget cuts left them stranded.

“I was quite upset,” says Horn.

Morongo Unified School District lost $5 million this year, so leaders eliminated bus transportation to students living within two miles of school. Horn’s kids just missed the cut off. They live about1.9 miles away.

“The ideal that someone thinks it’s logical to have an elementary-aged student walk two miles to school is feasible, is ridiculous to me,” says Horn.

There are two different routes Horn’s three sons can take when walking to school and both are scattered with potential dangers. They can either walk through the desert or take a neighborhood path where they will walk past the homes of at least four sex offenders.

“I don’t like either way. If they walk through the desert in the heat, there is no one that can see them,” says Horn. “The other way is where sex offenders live and they are at risk and in harms way.”

To play it safe, Horn drives his sons to school everyday, but it isn’t easy with their differing schedules and his job.

“It takes all day,” says Horn. “I take them in the morning, then my kindergartner gets off at noon and my other boys get off around 2:45.”

Horn says there must be a better way.

“I’m asking for their needs to be met. I’m not asking for any extras,” says Horn. “I want their needs to be met and transportation is a need.”

However, transportation is not required by the state.

“A free education does not include transportation to school, it’s optional,” says Michael Walker, Morongo Unified School District Assistant Superintendent of Business Services.

Some school districts around the nation cut transportation completely, others charge for buses.

MUSD leaders say they’re doing the most they can with how little they have.

“The last thing we wanted to do was eliminate bus routes and make kids walk further, but we have a certain amount of money and you can’t pay for what you can’t afford,” says Walker.

As school district struggles in the red, Horn says he will continue fighting for the yellow rides.

“I will not stop at this until I have a viable option for my kids and the other kids,” says Horn.