University Daily Kansan
Thursday, February 15, 1973
3
Tight Funds Restrict School Busine
By PAT BREITENSTEIN Konson Staff Writer
An excess of state and federal regulations, increasing costs and limited income have prevented the Lawrence Public School District from providing transportation to all Lawrence students that may need it.
According to Ernest Coleman, Lawrence public school's director of federal programs, the state will allow the school district to transport any of its students to their schools. The state requires the district to provide transportation for each student who live outside the city limits and more two and one half rules from their school.
The difficulty in state regulations, Coleman said, is in the area of state financial assistance to the school districts. Even though the state allows busing of all students, it will help finance the transportation costs only for those students living more than two and one half miles from their schools.
The present Lawrence public school's busing policy tries to work within the limits of state requirements and state financial constraints. The school's busing requirements, buses all students living
KU Provides Job Service For Students
An employment service for students who do not qualify for work study is now available in the Office of Student Financial Aids.
About 25 students have been placed in part-time jobs both on and off campus since the beginning of the spring semester, acco
nder Darwin Eads, director of the service.
Students who do housecleaning, babystying, clerical and secretarial work constitute a large number of those placed in jobs, Eads said.
Although some jobs are posted on a bulletin board outside the office, some employers prefer to limit the number of applicants for a job. Because of this, Eads encourages students to file an application with the office. This enables him to study the student's qualifications and refer him to prospective employers.
Approximately 100 students now have applications on file.
Eads estimated that about 90 per cent of students who used the service were happy.
The employment service was established last semester as a convenience for both students and employers. It provides a central location where faculty and businessmen can easily contact students who need jobs.
In addition to faculty members, Eads has contacted about 1,000 businesses in Lawrence to inform them of the service. He said he hoped this contact would increase the number of off-campus job opportunities for students.
outside the city limits and more than two and one half miles from their school.
The district also buses all elementary level students who live more than one mile from their school and all junior high students living more than two and one half miles from their school, regardless of where they live in the city limits or outside of town.
Coleman said that because of a lack of funds the district cannot bus high school students living in Lawrence, even though most students live in half miles from Lawrence High School.
The inability of the district to transport these high school students is an old problem in Lawrence. The problem is particularly in Income areas in East and North Lawrence.
Ocee Miller, volunteer worker at Penn House, a cooperative community aid program located at 1035 Pennsylvania, was particularly concerned about students living in Hope Plaza, near the north end of Michigan Avenue.
Miller said that some of the students at Hope Plaza can hitch rides. Others have to pay to be taken to school and this is particularly hard in low income areas.
She pointed out that in some low income areas of East and North Lawrence the families have no cars. In other families the father takes the car to work and he does not operate on the same schedule as the teacher, who cannot ride to school as he goes to work.
Miller said that she knew of four students that said they had dropped out of school because they had no way to get there. To counteract this situation Penn House is trying to coordinate a community bus in order to provide some transportation for students.
The present status of the bus project is in question. Miller said that there is some difficulty finding students willing to ride the bus, and also said that finances might be a problem.
Louise Cook, Lawrence public school's social worker, said it was hard to pinpoint transportation problems as the reason some problems certainly add to their problems.
problems for several years. She explained the failure of a district backed bus that carried high school students from North Lawrence during the 1970-1971 school term.
Cook has been involved in transportation
This bus was financed with special federal money for students from low income areas. After one year of service the funds were depleted and the bus did not meet federal requirements.
These requirements state that the money must be used to transport low income students to special teaching programs to assist them in developing basic skills. Because Lawrence High School is a general public high school it did not meet these requirements.
Cook said that when the federal assistance was withdrawn she requested that the busing from North Lawrence be continued with local funding. The local district could not honor this request because of lack of funding.
Coleman said that the district currently has allocated more than $14,000 to train firefighters.
cost of approximately $100 per student. The state reimburses the district $39 for each student that it buys more than two and one unit, or about 40 per cent of the cost to the district.
He estimated that if the district decided to bus all students living more than two and one half miles from school this would add $40,000 to the cost at an additional cost of nearly $50,000.
This would use all the additional funds that the district can receive through taxes due to the present state tax lid. Nothing then changes. The state tax lid increases or other educational programs.
Coleman has suggested a combination funding program that would utilize the state assistance given for all students bused two miles or half miles plus some form of local effort.
Coleman suggested a voluntary program in which local civic groups would finance the cost of a certain number of children. He believed this could cost as little as 30 cents a day.
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