Tehachapi Unified officials discuss proposal to expand middle-school walking radius for bus eligibility

Tehachapi Unified School District staff presented an informational proposal on Feb. 11 to expand the middle-school walking distance used to determine free home-to-school transportation eligibility from 1 mile to 2 miles.

District staff said the change is intended to reduce a persistent wait list for secondary riders in the Golden Hills area. Transportation supervisor Denise Berry told the board that the district’s existing distances are 3/4 mile for elementary (K–5), 1 mile for middle school, and 2 miles for high school, and that increasing the middle-school radius would shift the western boundary roughly to Tucker Road.

The proposal is an information item; staff said a formal transportation plan will be brought to the board for approval in March so the plan can be finalized before the April 1 deadline. Berry said the district introduced a bus-pass system in January that uses tap-in/tap-out cards and a parent app for notifications, and that actual daily ridership is noticeably lower than the number of issued passes.

Board members pressed for numbers and exceptions. Trustee Sweeney and others asked how many students would be affected and how often currently issued passes are used. Berry estimated, by “back-of-the-envelope” math, that roughly 10% of bus passes in the affected area are used regularly but said the district does not yet have precise route-level ridership figures because the new tap system was only implemented this school year.

Several trustees urged protection for younger students. Trustee Kaminski and others suggested the board consider safeguards for sixth graders — who may be less able to walk longer distances than older students — or adopting a compromise distance such as 1.5 miles. Superintendent Francis Lynch and staff noted that state prioritization rules already give TK–6 students and socioeconomically disadvantaged students higher priority for routes, and that safety exceptions could be made where walking routes are unsafe.

Board members asked staff to provide concrete data before any policy change, including: how many passes are on each middle-school route, the number of actual riders per route for a recent five-day period, and which stops would be affected by a boundary move. Trustee Sweeney suggested running a one-week audit during cold weather to capture typical demand. Staff said they can provide that information before the March plan brought for board action.

Because this item was presented as information, no board action was taken Feb. 11. District staff said they will return with a formal recommendation and supporting ridership data in March.