“When I was a kid and when I went to Dunbar, a yellow bus came to pick you up,” Lawrence said. “That’s the way it always had been.”
Leaders with the city of Dayton, Greater Dayton RTA, the Downtown Dayton Partnership and the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce have been calling on the school district to develop a plan to get high school students back onto traditional yellow school buses.
Most of these leaders say community stakeholders have spent nearly $1.5 million in the area around the downtown RTA bus hub to address security issues that students and others are causing.
“There have been significant investments made by our business community, RTA, the city of Dayton and the Dayton Police Department to address these safety issues,” said Chris Kershner, president and CEO of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce. “Dayton Public Schools has been investing in school resource officers at the RTA hub and the results have been positive, but ultimately the students need to be back on school buses.”
The school district is legally required to provide or pay for transportation for all qualifying students who live within the district boundaries, whether or not they attend DPS schools.
DPS is also in the process of hiring a superintendent, who potentially could reverse Lawrence’s decision.
Students use RTA
In the 2022-2023 school year, DPS switched from busing charter students on First Student, a bus service that contracts with schools, and switched to busing all kindergarten through eighth grade students in the district. But the change meant there wasn’t room for high school students to be bused and the district instead purchased RTA passes for all the high school students.
By the spring of 2023, Greater Dayton RTA CEO Bob Ruzinsky publicly said Dayton Public Schools should take over the responsibility of busing high school students. He said the students and others have been causing problems around RTA property and sometimes on it.
DPS says the district’s kids are not the ones causing problems and that busing DPS kids is a civil rights issue. School districts leaders argued that it’s not fair for the transit agency to want to agree to bus everyone except Dayton Public Schools kids.
Lawrence said the district stands by those comments but added that the downtown business community has voiced concerns over students being bused downtown and problems around the RTA bus hub.
Absences
Lawrence said the DPS academic team also believes having a yellow bus come to get high school students would encourage attendance and decrease the number of tardy and absent students.
According to the most recent state report card data, the chronic absenteeism rate for Dayton Public Schools is 46.9%, among the highest in the region. Chronically absent students miss 10% of school hours for any reason.
“There’s lots of complex communication and agreements,” Lawrence said. “I would say that the business community and the downtown Dayton partnership, I think they support those complex conversations.”
The district provides four school resource officers to the downtown RTA hub every school day, Lawrence said, and Dayton police have also increased its presence at the hub. Lawrence said a school board member has also gone to the hub recently to see what was going on.
“Whatever we do in transportation that sets the tone for the entire district,” Lawrence said. “So if we can get all drivers to work, pick up our kids and get into school, then we do reduce chronic absenteeism, we increase test scores.”
Safety concerns
In late August, Dickstein, Kershner and Sandy Gudorf (then-president of the downtown partnership) sent a letter to Lawrence and the school outlining some of their concerns with the school district’s current bussing situation, according to documents this newspaper obtained through a public records request.
In the letter, the leaders said the use of RTA buses to transport students has led to students gathering in large numbers downtown, which has contributed to criminal activities.
Most students follow the rules, but some have engaged in illegal and disruptive conduct, officials said.
Community stakeholders have spent nearly $1.5 million to improve safety around the downtown transit center, located near South Jefferson and East Fourth streets, according to the letter.
These investments included increased Dayton police patrols, a beefed-up police and security presence and additional RTA personnel have been assigned to the area.
LED lighting has been installed to improve visibility, a new surveillance camera tower was stationed in the area and new landscaping is going in to try to deter loitering.
The goal has been to protect businesses, customers, employees, students, passers-by and property, their letter states.
Keeping high school students in their neighborhoods on school-managed bussing is a safer and more efficient option for the students, downtown businesses and the public transit system, said Kershner, with the chamber.
“Safety and security for our downtown businesses and employees is a critical priority for the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce and our downtown businesses,” he said. “We have been working with our business leaders to enhance downtown vibrancy and create an environment that attracts and retains employees, and downtown safety and security is a key factor in these efforts.”
Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims Jr. said, “We trust that DPS will continue their efforts to enhance extra and after school programming for their students and reduce or eliminate RTA transportation.”
Bob Ruzinsky, CEO of Greater Dayton RTA, said the transit agency strongly supports DPS using yellow school buses for student transportation, but it has not heard anything directly or official about this from Lawrence or the school district.
He said he’s “cautiously optimistic” that DPS will change its bussing plan next year.
“The sooner (this change happens) the better,” he said. “But we understand these things would take a period of time to get going once again.”
Ruzinsky said the public transit system is not equipped to handle the demands of school bussing.
He also said that DPS school resource officers that are working downtown have helped calm things down and enforce student code of conduct.
Ruzinsky said most of the safety issues have taken place near but off of RTA property. He said he also doesn’t think students are the main troublemakers.
Ruzinsky said, “There has been a tremendous improvement at Fourth and Jefferson because of the efforts of the city and the other partners.”
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