Iowa City keeps discretionary busing for now

IOWA CITY - Discretionary busing has not reached its stop just yet.

School Board members voted unanimously Tuesday night to maintain discretionary busing in the Iowa City Community School District until criteria are developed to determine which routes can safely be eliminated.

'We've tried to do this in the past and it's not a simple exercise, so I would think it would be a multi-month process,” said board President Chris Lynch.

The district is required by Iowa law to provide busing for students who live more than 2 miles from their elementary school and 3 miles from their high school. Other busing is at the discretion of the district and competes with other expenditures.

Earlier this year, it was recommended the board eliminate discretionary busing as a cost savings. The district spent about $848,900 on it during the 2013-14 academic year.

When the board last discussed the issue during a Feb. 10 work session, board members expressed the same concern they did Tuesday - that routes could not be eliminated if they jeopardize the safety of students getting to school.

'If we can build multimillion dollar schools, I'm sure we can come up with funds to make sure our kids are going to be safe,” said board member Orville Townsend.

Before Tuesday's meeting, Lynch suggested the district consider maintaining 13 of 42 routes, which was estimated to save more than $500,000. Lynch said his proposal came from personal observations.

David Dude, chief operating officer for the district, said past suggestions had also come from subjective comparisons. Several board members expressed concerns.

'We're wanting to approach this in a data-driven manner and have an actual system to evaluate all of the discretionary busing before we start removing any of it,” said member Patti Fields.

In February, the board decided to ask the Metropolitan Planning Organization to help review route safety. The MPO said it did not have the resources to do so.

As part of Tuesday's vote, the board directed the administration to develop discretionary routes for the new Alexander Elementary school and find ways to develop criteria for considering discretionary bus routes. That includes discovering how much it would cost for the MPO to help, reaching out to the University of Iowa and municipalities for possible partnerships and looking at what has been done in other districts.

Parents at the meeting widely opposed eliminating discretionary busing.

Teri Snell, a mother of four from North Liberty, said her family's neighborhood is surrounded by busy streets. The only other option for her children besides walking to school, she said, is to cut through a field that is planted, harvested and muddy throughout parts of the year.

'I could see them coming to school, mud from head to toe,” she said.