How soaring fuel prices hurt kids

[Subdivisions]

Across the nation, school districts are slashing spending on teachers, books and computers as filling up the school bus gets more expensive.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The school buses in Dubuque County, Iowa, travel 4,900 miles each day ferrying kids to and from class. That's the equivalent of driving across the entire United States and halfway back again.

The price of the diesel these buses run on has jumped 35 percent over the last year. The extra money paid to fuel the buses must come out of the local school district's general fund - money it would prefer to spend on other things.

"It's computers, it's teachers, it's you name it," said Bob Hingtgen, director of transportation at Western Dubuque County Community School District, located 65 miles north of Iowa City. "The pie is only so big. If a bigger slice is going to transportation, it leaves a smaller slice for everything else."

Hingtgen said the district spent $50,000 more fueling its 80 buses this year than it did last year, or roughly what he said it would cost for the starting salaries of two teachers.

-snip-

http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/10/news/economy/schools_fuel/index.htm?cnn=yes

It would be interesting to see what teachers and school administrators have to say about this. Do school districts also have to cover the cost of food for lunches? If so, that's a double whammy!

Also, what are schools doing to ease the pain of increased operating costs? I read somewhere that some rural schools were moving to 4-day weeks. Is that true?

[DS1]

1. Make less stops

When I was a little shit, the bus stopped every 5 to 6 blocks, these days the little shits get doorstep delivery.

[CRF450]

2. Thought the kids cover the cost of lunch?

I remember paying like $1.35 or sometime like that for lunch, thats what every student had to do except they had some special program for those with very poor parents to get lunch for free I think. As for operating costs of school buses, I dont know what to say. Pretty much all students in rural areas will not walk to school unless they live less than a mile from it, and even if some do, the school bus will still stop in front of the student's house who's assigned to ride the bus. I would have walked to school if I could have to avoid the school (hated that and all the jackass kids), two of them were 9 miles from my house, and my middle one was 16 miles away. The amount of time spent on the bus was about an hour and a half. Thankfully in my second (and last) year in highschool, I was able to get rides with my best friend, and his two little brothers while his mom gave us a ride to school. So I got about an hour of extra sleep :)

[Krueg235]

3. Why do they always need the newest and latest computers?

When I was in school we never used anything that required beyond basic capacities. Schools have an obsession with having the latest and greatest technology even though its not needed.