School district reduces bus runs

Petaluma City Schools has reduced bus service for junior-high and high-school students, and has increased the walking distance for them from two to three miles due to state budget cuts, said the deputy superintendent of business and administration.

“This coincides with a 20 percent reduction in state funding for our transportation budget,” said Steve Bolman. “We have eliminated two routes, and cut back on several others.”

The reductions, which will affect some 175 students, enabled PCS to trim two driver positions and one standby driver/mechanic job, and thereby cut around $110,000 from its transportation budget.

“We made some difficult decisions, ones that our budget committee didn’t take lightly,” Bolman said.

The walking distance for elementary-school children will remain at one mile, said Cristal Goering, PCS’ direction of transportation.

One route that was eliminated had 10 stops on it for students who attend Casa Grande High School and Kenilworth Junior High School. Some of the stops on the other route were disbursed to other routes. No busing will be available for Kenilworth students north of Casa Grande Road, affecting 60 students, and no busing will be supplied for Casa Grande students from Kenilworth (along Ely Road/ Sonoma Mountain Parkway) to Casa Grande High School, affecting 20 students.

PCS will no longer provide service for Petaluma High School and Petaluma Junior High School at these locations (the number of students normally served at the stops is noted in parentheses): McKinley Elementary School (30), Mary Collins at Cherry Valley Charter School (15), Marshall Avenue (one or two), Mountain View Avenue (10), Petaluma Boulevard North, south of Corona Road (three), Skillman Lane (three), Wilson Elementary School (one), Gossage Avenue (one) and the West Ridge area (20).

In the Penngrove area, students living west of Old Redwood Highway now can catch a bus at a stop on Old Redwood Highway. Also, the downtown area stop now is at Penngrove Elementary School.

PCS has been working with Petaluma Transit to help compensate for the routes that have been eliminated or reduced.

“Petaluma Transit has created some routes to correspond with the start and end of the school day at secondary-school campuses. Families that live within the city can look at city transit routes and find one that accommodates their needs,” Bolman said.

He said that the district doesn’t expect to make any additional busing cuts this academic year.

“We will look at the situation again next year,” he said.

Bolman says that he has received some feedback from families about the reductions.

“I expect we will hear from a lot more of them,” he added.

Despite inconveniences caused by the route reductions, Bolman said that the situation could be worse.

“A lot of districts have totally eliminated transportation,” he said, adding that generally, this hasn’t significantly impacted attendance.

The Old Adobe Union School District will continue its usual bus services this academic year.

“We didn’t get information from the state about this until about three weeks ago. We’ll go forward with busing as is this year,” said Superinten-dent Diane Zimmerman, adding that she expect that the district will need to make reductions in the future.

The cuts reduced Old Adobe’s transportation budget by around $30,000, she added.

(Contact Dan Johnson at dan.johnson@arguscourier.com)