Parents seek answers regarding school buses

Bob and Lynda Stoll stood Monday on a wind-whipped plot of desert near their home in far North Las Vegas to trumpet their cry for more school buses.

The Stolls say they can't get bus service even though their three children cross dangerous intersections and walk along ditches to get to school.

"I think it's just asinine for them to tell kids to walk through the desert with no sidewalks," Bill Stoll said.

Classes start Monday, and the Stolls this week are among hundreds of parents flooding the Clark County School District with questions about school buses.

Many parents want to know whether they live within two miles of their school, which qualifies them to ride a bus.

Others call to complain that they don't get bus service despite a lack of sidewalks, busy intersections or dangerous construction work. Some have been "zoned out" of bus service when school boundaries were redrawn.

"As soon as I hang up the phone, it rings again," said Rebecca Thompson, a manager of bus routing and scheduling who handles some of the phone calls from parents.

Thompson works inside the nerve center of the Clark County School District busing operation at 4493 Arville St. She uses computer software called Edulog that calculates the distance from a given address to a school, to the hundredth of a mile.

Last year as many as 20,000 people a day called the district with bus questions and complaints, transportation director Ron Despenza said.

Many parents are frustrated to discover they are within feet of qualifying for bus service.

Among the most vocal has been Joy Kendall, who says her first- and second-grade children have a perilous walk of nearly two miles across several dangerous intersections and busy streets. Kendall may lose bus service to and from Cunningham Elementary when Metro officials place a crossing guard at Twain Avenue and Nellis Boulevard.

Haggling with school officials has been frustrating, she said.

"I feel like I have been patted on the head and ignored," Kendall said.

School bus officials say they are maxed out and can transport only those who qualify -- not the ones who almost do.

"Our policy states two miles," Lleeann Love, assistant director of transportation for the school district, said. "If you are 1.99 miles, you're not eligible for transportation. You have to set the rule someplace. I wish we could transport everybody, but we don't have the personnel, the buses, the facilities. We're bursting at the seams as it is."

The transportation department for the fastest-growing school district in the nation is suffering the same growing pains as other departments, officials say.

The district adds more than 10,000 students a year, and officials plan to add 21 bus routes this year to accommodate growth and eight new schools.

Last year the district's fleet of about 830 buses -- on 803 routes with 79,485 eligible riders -- logged about 15 million miles, making it the largest transportation system in the state.

School Board president Susan Brager said the board has lobbied the state Legislature for more busing money. Board members plan to ask again next year, she said.

Brager and some other officials advocate lowering the two-mile limit to 1.5 miles, a move that carries a $13 million price tag for more buses and drivers.

"Is it a lot of money when you're thinking about children's lives?" Brager asked. "The more Las Vegas grows, the more major intersections we have. We would like to be able to be a resource for everybody, but right now it is a fiscal problem."

Meanwhile, some parents are scrambling to find ways for their children to get to school.

"It's so disturbing, it's unreal," said Pam Lawrence, who has five children in Clark County schools. Lawrence, like the Stolls, worries about her children walking along and crossing Lone Mountain, among other streets. "We just don't know what to do."

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