School district in Texas (Keller)going to start charging ~$180 a semester for students that ride the

[Horse with no Name]

bus. If there is more than one student in the same household, they will give you a break down to ~$135.

This is what happens when republicans are in power.

[WinkyDink]

1. Land of Bush and Perry. Hope they like it.

[PDJane]

2. That's going to be helpful for those who can't afford it.....

[Horse with no Name]

3. I make a decent salary and I wouldn't be able to afford it

:(

[canoeist52]

4. We have that in MA too. Towns are out of money.

Foreclosures have consequences.

[Horse with no Name]

6. Ours is caused by Rick Perry

he replaced school budget money with stimulus funds and then when the stimulus funds ran out, he blamed the school budget shortfall on Obama....because he refused to replace the money he diverted leaving our schools in a mess.

[RB TexLa]

We might find out how many of those parents actually can drive by their kids schools and drop them

off. I think a lot of people will be surprised just how many of them CAN do that.

[WinkyDink]

18. Especially if the parents have jobs and children who begin school at different times, right?

[sakabatou]

5. WTF

:wtf:

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. That's been standard around here for years now

[tammywammy]

10. Is it a comparable fee to the one they want to charge in Keller? n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. I'm not sure what they charge now

It was $150 a couple years ago.

[canoeist52]

8. An interesting result of this fee is

traffic backed up for half a mile from parents idling on the side of the road waiting for their turn to drop kids in a driveway system that was only designed to hold a few buses.

[Peregrine]

9. When I went to Elementary

I had to pay $18 a month to ride the bus (60's). When I went to high school, I had to buy my own text books. Both public. I actually liked buying my texts because then I could write in them. I took class notes in the margins of my book. In math, I would work the problems right there in the book.

[dkf]

11. I always had to use the public bus and pay student fares.

I'm amazed some schools pay for these things.

[WinkyDink]

19. You obviously lived in an urban setting. BTW: "STUDENT fares" means....

SUBSIDIZED by tax-payers, kind of like SCHOOL BUSES.

[tammywammy]

12. Not to mention the city voted against a property tax increase.

The good news is that you don't have to pay all at once, they're going to do a monthly payment plan.

"Keller ISD says parents won't have to pay for bus service all at once; the district will accept payments on a month-to-month basis. Students who take part in the free or reduced-price lunch program will pay $100 per semester, an $85 discount."

http://www.wfaa.com/news/education/Keller-Parents-Pay-for-Bus-Service-125846563.html

[lpbk2713]

13. The oil cos should pay their fair share of taxes.

I know that will never happen.

But how many oil cos have major operations in Texas? On paper their HQ's are in the Caymans or some other shelter. And you know damn well if their Cayman office is more than a post office box it is only an office with no more than four or five employees. As is always the case the rich and powerful are being carried on the backs of the poor and powerless. If somehow all the tax loopholes the oil cos enjoy were closed there wouldn't be any need for the majority of the citizens to pay money they don't have for essential services that should be provided by a responsible governing body. Too bad responsible government is a thing of the past.

[WillyT]

14. K & R !!!

:mad:

:kick:

[RickFromMN]

15. What next? Private schooling? Make it so only the rich can afford schooling?

Republicans are Ferengi:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi

All we need is something akin to Latinum.

"When welcoming guests (or perhaps Liquidators or other officials in particular) into his home, a Ferengi male will recite a traditional greeting: "Welcome to our home. Please place your thumbprint on the legal waivers and deposit your admission fee in the slot by the door. Remember, my house is my house." The guest replies, "As are its contents"."

[rainbow4321]

16. Plano, TX does that, too

And, yes, it is also as red as a city can get in a red county.

The catch is this: if your home is further than 2 miles from your kids' school, they can ride for free. Less than 2 miles and you still want your kid to take the bus, you pay up.

There are SOOOOOO many elementary schools in this city (250,000 pop.) that you would be really, really, really hardpressed to find a kid who lives further then 2 miles from an elementary school.

There are less middle schools (6th-8th) and high schools (which house 9th and 10th grade here) but *alot* of kids live within 2 miles of them, also.



All these elem/middle/high schools feed into only THREE senior high schools (11th/12th), so THAT is usually the FIRST time that kids are "eligible" to ride for "free". While we lived well within the 2 mile radius for K thru 10th, we were 5 miles from the senior high.

But by the time kids reach 11th/12th here, they mostly all have cars. Plus riding the bus is not seen as the "cool" thing to do. Those without cars, beg for rides from friends who DO own cars, just to avoid getting on the school bus.