Letter to the editor: WASD refusing to provide busing

My name is Joshua McLaughlin and I am currently dealing with this situation and want to bring attention to the issue at hand. I know I am not the only parent in this community that is dealing with this issue at the moment. This is not how I thought the first year of my child being in school would go, but someone has to fight for what is right to ensure that the children of the area are safe.

I am deeply concerned and appalled that the Williamsport School District and other districts in the Commonwealth think it is acceptable to force kindergarten-aged children to walk, unattended or chaperoned, to their school if they live within 1.5 miles of the school. The district is citing and hiding behind the Public School Code of 1949 section 1362 as their reasoning to not provide busing. Section 1362 of the code has not been updated since Nov. 20, 1979.

There are many issues in the world we live in today. There is violent crime and human trafficking in the news everyday. I researched the number of sex offenders between my address and my son's elementary school and there are 14. Along with the crime, there is the morning traffic. The walk to his kindergarten would cross busy roadways. I refuse to let my 5-year-old walk 1.5 miles to school unattended when I wouldn't let them out of my backyard without supervision. This code is extremely outdated and needs to be amended to account for the current state of the world we live in. In 1979 everyone knew their neighbors, nobody locked their doors, and it was safe for children to be independent at a young age. The same cannot be said for the world today.

The safety of all children that fall under this code need to be protected by an amendment that requires school districts to provide safe passage to school without regard to distance to the facility. Schooling is compulsory and the district should bear the responsibility of safe and reliable transport to and from the educational facilities.

I have reached out to Senator Gene Yaw and Representative Jamie Flick to voice my concerns and to try and enact change that should have been made long ago.

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