Youngstown City Schools eliminates busing for high school students

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – The Youngstown School Board unanimously — and with little discussion — voted to eliminate the busing of all the high school students that it serves during a meeting on Tuesday.

That includes not only high school students at Youngstown’s high schools — Chaney, East and Rayen Early College — but also any high school that uses Youngstown buses, such as Mooney, Ursuline and Valley Christian.

All this happened because of a $2 million fine recently imposed on the Youngstown City Schools for failing to get students to school on time. There simply aren’t enough bus drivers to get it done, so instead of incurring another $2 million fine next year, the only option left was to eliminate busing for high school students, according to school officials.

According to Chief of Staff Rob Kearns, this should eliminate 26 routes in total and allow the district to focus more on getting pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.

Kearns also called it a sad day for public education, and he hopes the community comes together to get these students to school.

High school students who need to use the bus will now have to use WRTA. The school district is working with WRTA to help students get acclimated.

Board member Joe Meranto had one reason for the city’s busing problems.

“I would like someone to show me a district in Ohio, the size of Youngstown, that has to transport to 36 buildings every day. That’s unheard of and that’s our problem,” Meranto said.

Meranto said the state should try to help rather than fine the district for something they can’t control.

The lack of bus drivers was another reason, a problem board member Brenda Kimble said could have been avoided.

“But here we didn’t work with who we had and because a lot of those concerns weren’t met, we lost a lot of good bus drivers,” Kimble said.

Kearns says this is not something they chose or wanted to do.

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