Los Alamitos Unified School District is trying to get a hold of a tiger’s tail. Amid dwindling budget money, it is dealing with how to get students back and forth from home to its schools.
The LAUSD board of directors’s Board of Education held workshops on transportation and the McGaugh Elementary tennis courts Jan. 19.
Director of Transportation Jim Poper gave presentations on both subjects. The number of students using home to school transportation has dropped by nearly 60 percent over the last five years to 353 this year.
State funding for transportation, which districts are not mandated to provide, has also dropped by about 20-percent this year, Poper said.
Districts are required to provide transportation for Special Education students, but receive only partial funding. Because of that, parent fees have gone up to reduce encroachment on the district’s General Fund, Poper said.
Last year, more than $20,000 of General Fund monies went toward paying for transportation. This year, that number is expected to be more than $111,000, Poper said.
Poper said the district is trying to keep a handle on expenses, having cut drivers since last year as well as monitoring and consolidating routes. Still, that may not be enough.
“In talking with senior staff, we had considered maybe getting out of the bus business,” Superintendent Dr. Greg Franklin said. “The transportation money we get from the state and from parent fees help us offset what the state isn’t paying in special education funding. If we don’t have transportation, we lose all the state funding, so having a transportation program is better than losing state funding.”
Board President Jeff Barke said with low ridership, staff should look into programs for trying to increase riderships. “There has to be a creative way to get kids onto the buses,” Barke said.
Franklin said the district will maintain a transportation program next year, which the board is expected to approve in March.
With work on McGaugh Elementary winding up, the district is trying to determine what to do with the school’s tennis courts.
The tennis court area received very little use from students and the city as a whole prior to the renovation. The district is considering using the area for parking, which is at a premium at McGaugh.
Board member Meg Cutuli, who had three children go through McGaugh, said parking has always been an issue. Creating the new parking also improves safety in the current parking areas between auto traffic and people who are dropping off and picking up students. It also dramatically reduces the need for street parking and would provide all the parking necessary for the needs at the school, such as pool users, athletic teams using the gym for practice and a host of other programs, according to a staff report.
Poper said that regardless what happens to the courts, parking is needed.
“If we could use the courts for on-site parking, it would be enough additional parking to probably last us for years,” Poper said.
Franklin said last week the district will be using the courts for parking. After talking with City Manager Dave Carmany, the city of Seal Beach agreed with the usage, Franklin said.
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