Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
Watch Live

Kids Join Fight Against Magnet School Bus Cuts

A group of elementary school kids are sending letters to the San Diego Unified school board, demanding the district protect magnet school bus transportation. KPBS Reporter Ana Tintocalis has more.

A group of elementary school kids are sending letters to the San Diego Unified school board, demanding the district protect magnet school bus transportation. KPBS Reporter Ana Tintocalis has more.

(Photo: Best friends Maya Garnica, Lauren Dolor and Delaney Sanders have written letters to protect magnet school busing. Ana Tintocalis/KPBS )

The kids attend the Language Academy, a district-run French and Spanish magnet school in the College Area. Their school is one of a couple dozen that might lose their school buses as a result of the district's multi-million dollar state funding shortfall.
 

Advertisement

More than half of the students at the Language Academy rely on the bus. Kids worry they'll lose friends and their school.    
           

Eight-year-old Lauren Dolor says kids would rather pay for the service instead of attending another school closer to home.
 

“We need to find a way that these kids can go to school,” Dolor says, a third-grader at the Language Academy. “Because if 50 percent of the school rides the bus, pretty much all my friends, why keep the school really? Pretty much no one is going to be here.”
 

But San Diego school officials say charging for bus service would not save money because the district would have to subsidize hundreds of families who can’t afford it.
 

Magnet school supporters plan to present the letters and their arguments at tomorrow's school board meeting.
 

Advertisement

Ana Tintocalis, KPBS News.