Bianka Teeters is a junior elementary education major and writes ‘Chalk Talk’ for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper. Write to Bianka at bmteeters@bsu.edu.
How would you feel as a 5-year-old kindergartner having to walk two miles or ride the MITS bus to school? Children all over Muncie now have this problem to worry about.
Transportation by a school bus has been ripped out from under them. If children do not have a bus and they cannot get to school, they are set up for failure, all because Muncie residents didn’t want their property taxes raised.
The Nov. 5 election did not pass the referendum of raising property taxes to pay for school buses. So for the 2014-15 school year, the school buses for Muncie will no longer exist.
There are currently 3,555 students who ride the Muncie school buses daily. What are all those students going to do now?
The 2013 data for Muncie Community Schools shows that 73.1 percent of students are currently receiving free or reduced lunches. This is a huge number of students who depend on the school.
These families depend on these meals received at school. If these children do not have a school bus to get to school, they might not be able to attend school every day. This will then affect the children on another level. Some of these children might not get lunch and breakfast five days a week.
The only students who will be given transportation are those who are required by state law.
According to The Star Press, no elementary student is more than two miles from their closest school; however, that does not count children who are gifted and talented that attend East Washington Academy or students with special needs that attend a school not close to their home.
Junior high students and high school students are currently taking the MITS and will continue to do so.
If I were a parent, I would not want my elementary school students taking the MITS to school. A 5-year-old kindergarten student is just learning to read; how are they supposed to be able to read the buses and determine which is the correct one to get them to school?
This not only affects the children but also the bus drivers. Think of all the bus drivers who now have to figure out jobs they can apply for starting next year. A situation like this affects so many aspects of a community.
Muncie is the first to apply for a waiver so nobody really knows what is going to happen.
This is all around not a good situation. As a future teacher, I would never want my students not having an option of taking a school bus to and from school.
The children have no idea how much this is going to affect them and everyone in the community. Two miles is quite a far walk in the winter with snow and ice. There needs to be something figured out to keep the buses.
Personally, I hope they are not given the waiver and have to come up with something else to do to keep the buses. Children need school buses.
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