Nothing says “back to school” like ubiquitous yellow school buses dotting the roads. The sight of them in suburban neighborhoods provokes nostalgia and comfort; local children are safely and happily on their way to school.
In Chula Vista, however, as students prepare to return to school in mid-July, many will be doing so without the convenience of a school bus. For Sweetwater Union High School District, home to 14 high schools and over 40,000 students, cutting bus routes was one way to close the gap on what was originally projected to be a budget deficit of nearly 25 million dollars for the 2019-2020 school year. According to a letter sent from SUHSD Transportation Services to parents and guardians, it is now district policy to provide transportation only for students living more than 3.5 miles from school.
While bus services for students in special education classes were left untouched, SUHSD cut service from 32 bus stops, leaving only six active stops. Twelve of the discontinued stops formerly served high schools in Chula Vista, specifically Eastlake, Olympian, and Otay Ranch.
Twenty of the discontinued bus stops served San Ysidro High School.
Parents from all of the high schools are scrambling to find ways to transport their children, and deal with the resulting traffic crush at pick-up and drop-off times, but a small group of San Ysidro moms, who asked not to be identified by name, has banded together to fight for what they see as an issue crucial to their children’s academic success.
They began by choosing a morning to walk the 3.2 mile trek from south San Ysidro to San Ysidro High School in order to understand the pitfalls of the path their teens would take daily. During the hour and ten minutes they walked, they filmed the dangers they saw. They are concerned that the journey takes teens through encampments of homeless people, where the cadre of moms encountered both garbage and human waste. These parents see the proximity to the border as an issue, noting that in the event of a kidnapping, victims could be taken to Mexico before police would be able to intervene. In addition, they worry about the number of convicted sex offenders that, according to the Megan’s Law website, live along the path students will walk.
The last 25 minutes of their walk, one mom noted, was uphill, through an area without houses, where a narrow sidewalk is the only protection from the cars that pass rapidly on the winding road. The brush lining the road is tall enough to hide a predator laying in wait. And even other kids, they worry, could be problematic, throwing rocks from the pedestrian bridge, tossing each other’s belongings into the canyons as a prank, or starting fires in the dry grass.
After walking more than an hour, the cluster of moms arrived at the high school, hot, sweaty, and hungry. A few complained of headaches, others of blisters. Their concern shifted. “If this is how we felt after walking once, how will our children feel walking every day?” asked one mom. She was not alone in voicing the concern that children would be more likely to miss school on rainy or hot days, and that they would arrive at school grouchy and unmotivated, especially if they have to start walking at 6:45 am to arrive at school by 8:30. Their heavy backpacks will weigh them down and at a school with no lockers, they will carry this weight all day.
Although these are parents who are involved in their children’s schools, more than one laughed shyly when asked if they considered themselves activists. Still, they began to take action, petitioning anyone who would listen. They began an email campaign, contacting any elected representative they could think of, including senators, representatives, and even the governor. Those who are fluent in English created email templates for those who are not. There were some missteps along the way, as they appealed to city council member Vivian Moreno, who has no jurisdiction over school board matters, before realizing that their concerns were best presented to the County Office of Education or the California Superintendent of Public Education, Tony Thurmond.
In the meantime, SUHSD is poised to begin a new school year, with a balanced budget, in part due to the deep cuts made in transportation. The tiny band of parents intends to keep looking for resources, speaking to anyone who will listen, involving community members, and working to change what, in their eyes, is a situation which will negatively impact their children’s education on many levels. Despite the fact that the new fiscal year has begun, one mom bravely insists, “We will keep fighting as long as there is hope.”
