The Lansing School District cut in half last month the number of students on a waitlist for transportation to and from school as officials continue to deal with a shortage of school bus drivers, Superintendent Benjamin Shuldiner said.
District officials also doubled the amount provided monthly via gas cards to families able to drive their children to school, from $25 to $50 per student.
The waitlist for the bus dropped from 1,200 to 461 students last month, and the district distributed more than 2,000 gas cards and more 330 CATA cards. About 4,200 students are on the district bussing list.
“We care deeply about having our students come to school, and we’re going to do what it takes to support the families in getting the students to school,” Shuldiner said. “By increasing the dollar figure from $25 to $50 per month per kid, we know that that allowed for more families to bring their kids to school through their own personal transportation.”
Since taking over as superintendent, Shuldiner has made attendance one of the district’s three main goals. Those goals include increasing the four-year high school graduation rate to 85%, increasing the district enrollment to 11,500 students and increasing daily attendance to 90% — all by 2025.
“With a bus driver shortage and lack of bus routes for every child, we really really are trying to focus on getting children to school every day because attendance is not only one of our three major goals, but it’s really important for children to get to school in order to learn,” Shuldiner said.
Shuldiner announced the changes during the Lansing school board meeting Oct. 7. He said district officials made the decision to increase the amount on the gas cards due to rising gas prices and the numbers they had seen in the month of October. According to AAA, gas prices in Lansing are more 70% higher than the average price a year ago.
“We know it isn’t going to cover the entire gas bill, but certainly $50 is better than $25 and we really wanted to make families feel comfortable using the gas cards rather than being on the waitlist for the school bus,” Shuldiner said.