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Comment by entropicdrifter | Hacker News Reader

These are all legitimate but I found my self a bit bewildered that the concept of a school bus is absent entirely from the apparent thought process, given I rode the bus for the vast majority of my primary and secondary schooling

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As a parent in the Houston Independent School district, one of the recent changes made by the state-appointed superintendent (we were taken over recently) was to fire all the bus drivers and rehire as contractors. The result is that elementary and middle school are combined, bus stops are up to 3 miles from home address, and bus trips are often in excess of 2 hours (for what should be ~20 minute drives). I also took the bus all growing up, but I walked a few blocks to my bus, and the route was only about 50% longer than driving directly.

Sadly, while we are all used to Texas state government hostility to public goods, even in my home state of Maryland, apparently bus trip lengths have now doubled. In an era of declining public investment, it's apparently easier to save money on non-teacher staffs...

If you think in systems, you can see the python squeezing everywhere: companies squeezing for profits as labor costs increase due to structural demographics and the cost of money has increased substantially from low or zero rates, public investment being squeezed because taxes won't go up to pay for teachers and ancillary staff (1600 school districts across 24 states in the US are on 4 day weeks to retain teachers [1] [2]), etc. I have seen pay for school bus drivers in fairly standard COL areas approach $25-$30/hr. That is what it takes to put people behind the wheel for those jobs now.

It's a natural experiment to behold as a curious scholar of systems, but also deeply disappointing to watch as Rome does not burn, but fades out in various ways. We could make better choices; we choose not to at scale.

[1] https://direct.mit.edu/edfp/article/16/4/558/97130/Are-All-F...

[2] https://direct.mit.edu/view-large/figure/4256961/edfp_a_0031...

> I have seen pay for school bus drivers in fairly standard COL areas approach $25-$30/hr. That is what it takes to put people behind the wheel for those jobs now.

Per FRED[1], median personal income in 2023 was ~$21/hr. Per ADP's most recent survey[2], median pay for people who did not change jobs was ~$29/hr.

Given that context, it is not surprising that the pool of people who can qualify for these jobs (no criminal record, drug screen, etc.) and who want them also demand to be paid near the median income.

(You of course know this, but I want to contribute this data point for the discussion.)

> We could make better choices; we choose not to at scale.

Honestly, this is the American Way. One day our luck will run out and we will fail or be forced to make better choices.

1 - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA646N

2 - https://payinsights.adp.com

Great points, thanks for sharing.

> Honestly, this is the American Way. One day our luck will run out and we will fail or be forced to make better choices.

Amen.

School buses are increasingly rare - https://www.vox.com/life/373743/school-bus-transportation-ki...

My kids start school at 8:40 and the train to work leaves at 8:54, meaning that if everything goes perfectly (no disasters at dropoff, train on time, I get the folding bike unfolded quickly and ride like hell, though I like that part) I get to the office at 9:27. I don't think it would be physically possible for me to do a 9:00 AM start time.

you don't think it's physically possible to drop your kids off at school early? The school doors are locked until 8:39am and there are zombies and werewolves patrolling outside making entering the building early, or waiting outside physically impossible?

Like it get that remote work is wayyyyyyyyy better and RTO sucks, but let's not make up lies

Do you think the teachers live at the school? There's going to be a time when they're just unable to accept kids. I would presume that 8:40 is the earliest that parent can drop off and the school actually starts the lessons a little bit later.

> you don't think it's physically possible to drop your kids off at school early? The school doors are locked until 8:39am and there are zombies and werewolves patrolling outside making entering the building early, or waiting outside physically impossible?

What the hell does "physically possible" have to do with anything? Did you ever go to school? The doors may not be locked, but unless the school has some kind of defined pre-care program, they're not ready to take care of random kids dropping in early. That's why they have a start time.

My kids' school has a 20 minute drop off window. They have an pre-care option, but you have to sign up for it (and pay) because they have to juggle staffing levels. You can't just physically dump your kid outside the door and leave because you'd like to.

This may be easier for you understand: A store opens at 9AM, but you're available at 8AM and have to be in the office at 9AM. Can you just drop in at 8AM to get your shopping done? No, if the employees are even there, they're busy with "getting ready for the day" tasks. Same thing goes with schools.

In some parts of the country, parents are arrested for child abandonment for leaving children unattended (that's the situation outside at the school before the doors are open).

Depending on when you have to leave for your commute, the doors may well be locked. And doors being unlocked does not mean you are allowed to leave your child there without ramifications. Again -- leaving a child in a school building without agreed-upon supervision is still a clear display of negligence.

Anyway, these are not serious solutions.

We need to return to latchkey parenting.

I should have been clearer.

It doesn't matter that the 9-year-old comes home on a bus vs walking. They still are not allowed to stay at home by themselves for hours after school every day, even if they take the bus.

It's not the conveyance, it's that the parent is no longer on the premises at all.

I simply chose walking because most of the kids in our neighborhood walk to school.

Also a bus/train rider in my youth (from 6 years old no less) but today it's a bit different. I live in a very safe rural part of the US but even here the school busses aren't entirely safe for kids (bullying, theft) so we ended up driving our kids after a few months of trying the bus. In addition the busses only run to school hours so if the kids attend any kind of after school activity, which turns out to be the case most days...no bus.

At least by me you have to be more than 1.5miles from the school to get a bus - that's a half hour walk! Doable certainly, but not fun, especially in the winter - or worse, when it's hot!

And teens need to live even farther from their school to qualify for a bus, but teens don't walk any faster than non teens. Most kids don't really want to spend the better part of an hour each way going to/from school.

A bike can make 1.5 miles an easy ride (I rode 4 miles to school in HS) but it's really rare to have safe bike routes in most places, sadly.

Sadly untrue where I grew up. The hills were brutal, walking and taking longer was preferable to not feeling your legs lol

I used to occasionally walk home from school in high school, about 3 miles. Not very many sidewalks as it was a semi-rural area (there were some in town but only for like 1/3rd of the walk), and I had to walk across a highway overpass, which was a bit sketchy to do on foot.

I would beat the bus when I did so, but only because I went to a charter school and there was a solid 40 minutes of sitting and waiting on a second bus at a different school that we were initially bussed to built into the bus commute.

Anyways, just reminiscing.

In California the school buses aren't free.

My district called bus service due to low ridership. The majority of parents in my district are single income and so one parent drives their kids to school every day. It's just another factor forcing low income families out of the neighborhoods.

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