De Beck: Can't Build Schools So We Have to Bus

By John de Beck, Bay Park

I'm unconvinced. I live near Patrick Henry. There is at least a dozen buses taking kids all over the City. Hundreds of buses passing each other. Large scale busing is due to the Brown ruling. I understand that parents want to send their kids to the best and safest schools. We need to make all the schools safe and first class. I have seen one bus waiting to take one student home after soccer practice. Day after day for every sport season. If you believed in "global warming", then you would not want all the busing. You need to spend the money on schools. The voters have not turned down your requests.

Posted by lee | reply to this comment
March 23, 2009 7:43 am

I worked at Morse for 14 years. If all the students who lived in the Morse area stayed at Morse, there would be 6000 students there. It's a large geographical area. I now work at UCHS, and if it weren't for busing, we'd be lucky to have 900 students. People forget that the district is only considering cutting buses for magnet schools, though - NCLB, Choice, VEEP, etc. will remain.

Posted by Mr. Middleton | reply to this comment
March 23, 2009 12:54 pm

Lee, I DO believe in global warming. I've seen the data; Busses, even at partial-capacity, are far more energy-efficient, generally speaking, than a single car driving one student to school. Your claim that 'If you believed in "global warming", then you would not want all the busing' could not be further from the (research-backed) truth. In fact, your untrue-claim helps illuminate an issue Unified does not seem to be publicly addressing: Eliminating bus services, & forcing parents to drive to these schools,will dump more cars on the road,& increase C02 being emitted into our air, thereby further accelerating the progression of global warming. I recommend that Unified make a researched decision: Determine the # of students who use bus services & compare this carbon footprint to the ft.print that would be created by the alternative; i.e. 7 thousand more cars on our public roads emitting more C02.

Posted by Unified, Please Act Like An Ed | reply to this comment
March 23, 2009 8:58 am

So what is the carbon foot print of students walking to their neighborhood schools? How does this compare to your buses? This is what I did for 12 years. Will Al Gore give me a carbon credit? This district needs to be split. It's too big, if busing is being used to replace neighborhood schools.

Posted by RB | reply to this comment
March 23, 2009 6:34 pm

I have 3 daughters, all whom have been bused courtesy of the SDUSD. My youngest was bused out of our area for her last two years of elementary school and all 3 have been bused to a performing arts magnet. All of my girls benefited from the community they attended within the magnet school and, because the school is a lot more "forgiving" of individualism, one thrived there. I really believe that would not have happened at our neighborhood school. Not to mention that our local school has consistently been performing below standard. If you don't want to pay for the kids to be bused to schools where they will get an education that will make them contributing members of society, then pass the vouchers. At least this way the district receives the money for student attendence.

Posted by Lisa | reply to this comment
March 23, 2009 9:37 am

Excuse me, but I've watched the District tear down hundreds of small homes to replace them with new schools funded in their construction bond ballot measures. That didn't seem so hard. Better would be a good public transit system that students to ride to get where they need to go. Many students in private schools use transit now, but the system is about to be cut again. Too bad all the agencies work like little fiefdoms without considering the overall public needs.

Posted by Watching from the stands | reply to this comment
March 23, 2009 12:10 pm

I do not understand how what John says here relates to San Diego's art and language magnet schools which depend on district busing -- magnet schools which, without district-provided busing, will cease to exist. Do these magnet schools with student transportation have intrinsic value for their uniquely focused academic programs? Are these magnet schools with district transportation valuable as racial and socio-economic crossroads in an otherwise geographically stratified school district? Do these magnet schools with district busing provide the population safety-valves John describes as necessary to prevent either over-crowding or under-enrollment? I always thought San Diego's arts and language magnet schools were evidence of our educational imagination and flexibility. I hope the Board and Superintendent will agree to preserve them in their present form.

Posted by Frances O'Neill Zimmerman | reply to this comment
March 23, 2009 1:41 pm

I have read all of your comments, and many of you have valid points, but the bottom line is this-- where will we be able to accomodate all the students that will no longer be able to attend the magnet schools due to transporation? Also, how long will the Magnet schools be able to survive without those students? I have two teens attending School for Creative and Performing Arts in Southbay, while we live in University City. The alternate school for them would be University City High School; living so close to the school, I see the dangers there on a daily basis, (cop cars parked outside almost daily, fights, hookey, etc) and I refuse to send my kids there. What are we supposed to do???

Posted by Christine | reply to this comment
March 23, 2009 2:31 pm

I disagree with Christine. I attend UCHS and I live near SPCA. Her version of the amount of police at UCHS is grossly exaggerated. There are more cops outside SCPA when I get home than there ever are at my school.

Posted by UCHSStudent | reply to this comment
March 24, 2009 8:12 am

Christine, what you can do is support your neighborhood schools. It is not enough to send your student to a magnet, charter, or private school and ignore the other students in your community. Christine, what you can do is vote for a board member who represents the students instead of the teachers union. Christine, what you can do is demand that Ms Jackson provides an appropriate education for all students and this includes funding for the magnet program. (So after looking at the schools, who wants the government to run health care? They would put us on a bus instead of giving us treatment.LOL)

Posted by RB | reply to this comment
March 24, 2009 10:01 am

The government couldn't do any worse than Kaiser. Ask anyone who is forced to use them.

Posted by Mr. Middleton | reply to this comment
March 24, 2009 12:47 pm

As a school teacher, are you are objecting to the District's demand that its contract with SDEA requires using only Kaiser Permanente as part of the shared health benefits program for employees? If you are signed on with another health institution, I can see why changing doctors and hospitals would be upsetting. But Kaiser is a reputable institution with a track record for good medicine along with an ability to contain costs, and teachers here still have a district that contributes to their health benefits. Probably worth the sacrifice.

Posted by Scripps Clinic Person | reply to this comment
March 27, 2009 3:29 pm

This teacher is for CHOICE for his health program but against CHOICE for students in education. Someone who works for the public schools with strong negative comments about Kaiser is just too funny. What would happened if Kaiser failed its customers 50% of the time?

Posted by RB | reply to this comment
March 28, 2009 6:31 am

In my family's experience, Kaiser tends to prescribe pills instead of run tests. I don't blame health care providers or schools for existing patient/student conditions, but I do expect both to work with such. The reply was to RB's comparison of public schools to government-run health care, implying the superiority of privatization. Private schools are not forcibly held accountable to NCLB, so comparisons of that sort are invalid. Still, research shows that public schools tend to outperform private ones (see Science Week). Any school who has received a child who was under/miseducated at certain private schools knows first-hand that "choice" is more likely to be about taxpayer-supported dogma than education (when I worked in SESD, kids we got from local religious schools could barely read) and free-market fetishists are about making money at the expense of children (remember the charter debacles in northern Arizona? How did that serve kids?).

Posted by Mr. Middleton | reply to this comment
March 31, 2009 1:32 pm

Can anyone smell the red herring......this is a distraction. Money is available if you look in other places. What about the large carryovers like those brought to the board tonight? 9 million in carryover for books. Where else can we look? Magnet bussing should be reinstated and we should keep looking.

Posted by the secretary | reply to this comment
March 24, 2009 6:57 pm

Hello John, I have to wonder how, in the school board's opinion, does eliminating 85% of the construction workforce from working on school construction projects through the use of a union only labor agreement help this issue? We finally have money (prop S funds) and the first act of the San Diego School board is catering to a special interest group (organized labor) instead of looking for the lowest RESPONCIBLE bid for building / renovating our schools. The California Prevailing Wage Act sets the hourly wage rates for field construction workers and OSHA sets the standards for job site safety. The union backed Project Stabilization Agreement does nothing other than cut competition for work on San Diego schools. In the interest of the parents and students affected by a shortage of classrooms I urge the San Diego School board to put the interests of the students before special interests.

Posted by PMP | reply to this comment
March 25, 2009 8:16 am

The FACTS about Magnet School busing. I work for the San Diego Unified School District and here are the facts about busing: There are 36 Magnet Schools in San Diego. They have 21, 750 students. Of those 5, 230 get bused to and from their school. So if 5, 230 students don't have transportation what will they do??? Some WILL drop out. Others will just miss a lot of school. Each day missed by a student costs the School District $35.00 dollars in state revenue. So basically cutting busing in the long run is going to cost the Schools revenue, truant children will increase crime and law enforcement will increase and efforts to get the students back to school will increase and ... DO THE MATH !!!

Posted by jujusyah | reply to this comment
March 25, 2009 4:57 pm

Hey John, any thoughts on the union only labor agreement for bond money work on San Diego Schools? Should the non union contractors who make up 85% of the construction workforce who live in the area that has to pay off this bond be responsible for the debt? Let's see, according to you, non union contractors should be denied the opportunity to work on public property funded by public money yet should be accessed to pay the bond off. John, SDUSD has no problem educating illegal aliens perhaps non union contractors should throw away their US identification and bid the work as "undocumented contractors"?

Posted by PMP | reply to this comment
April 7, 2009 2:03 pm

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