JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — More than 1,000 Duval County Public School students will have to find a new way to school.
The school district changed its transportation policy and starting in August school buses will not pick about 1100 middle and high school students, the school district said, because they live within two miles of their schools. Before the policy change, school buses would pick up middle and high school students within a mile and a half of school, school board members said.
High school teacher Jacobi Edwards said he worries some students won’t walk the extra distance.
“A lot of my students, they’ll just be like, ‘hey the bus didn’t show up so I didn’t show up,’” Edwards said.
Chris Tobey runs Safe Future Foundation, a diaper and food bank, and said he knows several of the families impacted by the bus policy change. First Coast News asked if those families know how they’ll get their kids to school.
“They do not,” Tobey said. “So we’re trying our hardest, myself, Safe Future, and a lot of organizations, we’re trying our hardest to see what we can do.”
District 3 School Board Member Cindy Pearson walked the two miles before determining the policy change was necessary due to the district’s budget shortfall.
“There are gonna be hard decisions,” Pearson said. “We were just talking about school closures, that’s part of the conversation. Transportation is part of the conversation as well. Looking at strategic abandonment of programs, that’s part of the conversation.”
Pearson encourages families to carpool and look into the Jacksonville Transportation Authority’s school program My Ride 2 School, which lets students ride public buses to school for free.
Edwards worries if it comes down to walking farther in the heat and getting to school sweaty, some students may just stay home.
“’I feel forgotten,” he said, explaining how his students may feel. “I literally, the bus forgot to get me or they just chose not to get me so since no one showed up for me, I’m not gonna show up for y’all. So that makes our jobs as teachers even harder.”
The Duval County Public Schools said families impacted by the change are being contacted directly.
First Coast News is waiting to learn from the district which schools are being impacted the most.