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School board highlights unpaid courtesy busing, seeks state funding for new high school
Summary
Board members reviewed a draft of legislative priorities including a request for state funding for a new high school and data on unpaid courtesy busing that the district says leaves hundreds of students unfunded.
Board member Miss Schooneman said the board’s draft legislative priorities emphasize two items for the upcoming session in Tallahassee: state funding for the district’s new high school project and reimbursement for courtesy busing.
The items matter because the district estimates a significant share of students ride under courtesy busing and receive no state funding for those routes. "Seventeen point nine percent of our total student population are fall under that category," Miss Schooneman said, referring to the statistic on the draft priority sheet drawn from the state Department of Education. Superintendent Dr. Bennett confirmed the district can supply updated counts after this week’s FTE reporting period.
The nut graf: the board plans to carry the drafted priorities to state lawmakers to seek funding for capital work at the high school and to press for reimbursement or a funding mechanism for courtesy busing, which district officials called a persistent, unfunded cost.
Members discussed specifics and requested additional dollar estimates before formal submission. Board member Miss Mott asked the district to produce a dollar figure to show how much the unfunded courtesy busing costs the district. "It would be helpful too if we had a dollar amount whenever we were talking with folks about, you know, this is costing our district x number of dollars," she said. Dr. Bennett said he and staff would compile FTE-verified counts and an approximate fiscal impact and try to circulate the numbers by the end of the week.
During the discussion staff supplied two additional figures cited by board members: the draft priority document contains a 17.9% courtesy-busing statistic pulled from state data, and a staff comment noted "Basically, 756 kids are unfunded." The board did not vote on the draft during the meeting; members described it as a document they will carry to legislators and asked staff for follow-up figures before any final board action.
Dr. Bennett also told members the governor’s preliminary budget includes a multi-year appropriation for the district’s new high school project, which he described as "the tune of $36,000,000 over, and and 36,000,000, let's say, 900 and something thousand over 3 years." He characterized that as a preliminary allocation and said discussions remain ongoing in the legislative process.
Board members asked staff to prepare both up-to-date FTE counts and a dollar estimate of the district’s uncompensated transportation costs to support lobbying conversations in Tallahassee. Miss Schooneman said the front page of the printed legislative priorities packet contains statistics from the Department of Education, and the board will take the document "with us to Tallahassee."
