Nicely done article!

I agree with Dave -- this is an excellent article!

If no solution is found, I would suggest that a group of parents lobby the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District for supplementary "school term" bus service to DeLaveaga Elementary School.

Public transit agencies are forbidden from offering dedicated school bus service, but they are free to extend regular bus routes to cover schools. Elsewhere in Santa Cruz County, Metro provides "school term" service in the Scotts Valley and San Lorenzo Valley areas. The extra bus trips are timed to the school day and run only during the school year. School students and members of the public can ride, but in practice "school term" trips are not promoted to the general public.

Although parents may not be accustomed to sending kids to school on transit, this is common practice in many other cities. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for example, there are no school buses for the public school system. Students even learn to transfer from one public transit route to another, in the downtown core. In Toronto, I rode public transit to school starting in the 5th Grade. Santa Cruz Metro, for its part, is a very safe transit system.

One of my goals for the Metro Riders Union was to help Watsonville-area parents lobby for "school term" transit service, in the wake of severe school bus cuts at the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD). Though the passage of the $15 billion state deficit bond has eased budget pressures at PVUSD, I'd still like to organize people around this issue. I have already developed a map showing the schools and the existing Metro bus routes. Perhaps the initiative could be extended to Santa Cruz as well.

My parents and my husband's parents are all elementary school teachers, and we talked to them about transit. One suggestion was that chaperones ride with the students. I think an organized group of parents could convince Metro to provide free tickets to chaperones. In my wildest dreams, we could secure a $15-per-month youth pass, similar to what AC Transit, one of California's largest public bus systems, once provided.

Parents, students, school board members and others are encouraged to help out! The e-mail address is given above.

As a relative newcomer from Chicago, I was amazed to see the schools in Santa Cruz are every bit as racially segregated as those of Chicago. It appears that the response to integration in Santa Cruz has been to form exclusionary charter schools. As long as the citizens of Santa Cruz allow the segregationists to be subsidized by the taxpayer, this situation is only going to get a whole lot worse. A recent article in the Sentinel indicated that almost 60% of the charter school parents have PhDs or other advanced degrees. Guess where those parents work? They are in large part the right-wing segregationist liberals that constitute the UCSC faculty.

as of this wriiting there is still no funding for the transport of these students.

there are many parents who feel betrayed and angry by the closing of branciforte; those who wanted to bring legal action. bad feelings remain.

even if children are bussed those students never become 'regular' members of the sudent body.

it's much harder to be a part of the community when you can't hang out after school, wen you can't be in clubs, on teams and still have enough time to do your homework.

it's much harder fo families to participate if they are far away, working, and with limited transportation.

there is a perception that the richer, whiter parents can drive their kids to school, while the poorer, kids of color will take the bus.