Education panel OKs purchasing public transport tickets for students

CARSON CITY -- A bill allowing school districts to buy discounted tickets for students on public bus lines was unanimously approved by the Assembly Education Committee Monday and sent to the floor of the House.

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, said some of her students either pay $1 or 50 cents to ride the local bus lines to class. Assembly Bill 2 "would encourage kids to use more regional transportation," she said.

Giunchigliani is a schoolteacher in Clark County and said the discounted tickets would be available only for middle school and high school students and their parents who are called to school for meetings with teachers.

In Clark County, she said, any student who lives within two miles of a school does not rate transportation by a school bus, so they have to walk. The bill would permit the district to negotiate for reduced fare tickets for those walking students.

Martha Tittle, lobbyist for the Clark County School District, told the committee it supported the bill as long as it was permissive. She said the district has "one of the most sophisticated systems" in which 87,000 students are transported.

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