By William C. Singleton III
Hoover parents whose children ride buses to school won’t have to pay for bus service after all.
The five-member city school board unanimously voted to rescind its April 2014 decision to cut free bus service and require families to pay for their children to ride buses to school on Aug. 3. Free bus service was scheduled to stop at the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, but Hoover’s plan had to be approved by the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. District Court that oversees the long-standing desegregation case involving several area schools.
But new School Superintendent Kathy Murphy decided to put the issue to rest for good.
“I have a huge disconnect in my mind with the idea of free public education but charging you to get on a bus to get you to school,” she said.
The board’s vote drew applause from parents in the audience.
Hoover parent Trisha Powell Crain said she knew the school system eventually would make the right decision. “I think we knew from the beginning that the federal officials would have a problem with fee-based transportation because it did negatively impact a protected group more than it would impact others,” she said. “I’m very pleased that it’s over. We don’t have to worry about bus fees anymore.”
Murphy said both the Justice Department and the NAACP League Defense Fund – plaintiffs in the desegregation case – had questions about Hoover’s decision to eliminate free bus service. The Justice Department had asked Hoover school officials to justify their decision to charge a fee for bus service. Murphy said she didn’t want to blame the Justice Department for her recommendation.
“I’m going to take ownership of this,” she said. “My recommendation to the board was initiated by my philosophy. All I can do is base my decisions on my philosophy and what I feel is right for children and what I feel is right for students.”
The initial decision to cut bus service was recommended by Andy Craig, Hoover’s former school superintendent now working at the Alabama Department of Education. Craig said at the time that a fee-based transportation service was necessary to offset a growing deficit.
Murphy said the school system still needs to look at ways to handle spending, but cutting bus service isn’t an area where it should shave expenses.
“I think there are a number of places we can look at our budget that can offer us some savings similar to that of charging parents for bus service,” she said. “I’m going to take a very close look at the entire budget of this school district and the entire financial side of this school district, and I want to look for the very best and savvy ways we can be good stewards of this community’s money and try to minimize any negative impact that might have on our parents and our children.”
A fee-based bus service would have generated about $2 million annually for the Hoover school system, Murphy said.
