NSTA's Robin Leeds on CNN: 20% of Schools are Reducing Transportation

By Ryan Gray

Robin Leeds, the industry consultant to the National School Transportation Association and a 2009 STN EXPO keynote speaker, was just interviewed on CNN Newsroom regarding massive budget cuts nationwide that are hitting schools, and as a result school transportation services are falling by the wayside.

The American Association of School Administrators recently reported via a survey of its members conducted last month that 44 percent of schools are eliminating field trips and 35 percent are consolidating bus routes as a way to deal with strangling budget freezes and eliminations. Forty-eight states are experiencing shortfalls in their budgets that are affecting education. Today, Leeds told CNN anchor Kyra Phillips that 20 percent of the nation's schools are experiencing some kind of cutback to regular school bus route services.

Phillips, who said she rode the school bus as a child, expressed outrage and asked what effect these cuts will have on child safety, such as opening up students to sexual predators.

While Leeds didn't touch on the sexual predator topic, she did mention that only about 20 students are killed in or around the school bus each year, about 16 on average who aren't even riding the bus at the time and are struck as pedestrians who just disembarked the bus or were about to board, according to U.S. DOT estimates. Sometimes these kids are hit by the bus itself, but more often they are struck by passing motorists. Meanwhile, Leeds said some 800 students on average are killed each year on their way to or from school in other vehicles, waking or riding bicycles, again based on federal estimates.

Leeds did relay to Phillips and viewers a phone call she recently received from a grandmother living in Indiana who was concerned about recent cuts made at her 8-year-old grandchild's school district.

Lack of money was forcing the schools to reduce routes to the point that a local church parking lot was being designated as student congregation area for morning pick-ups and drop-offs. The grandchild lives 3/4 miles from the church, but the only route to and from the church is along a busy four-lane highway with a posted 55 mph speed limit and no shoulder due to highway construction.

As the segment ran out of time, Phillips promised Leeds that CNN would stay on top of the issue and would bring her back in the near future.