School bus services cut

More than 250 Eagle Valley Middle School students will have to find their own way to school when four bus routes are canceled April 19.

"We're going to discontinue busing for those students who live around the Empire Elementary School area," said Mike Mitchell, director of operations for the Carson City School District. "We sent out letters to all the parents and students who will be affected."

Mitchell is organizing a trial run this morning for parents and students to test the route they could be walking.

Those interested are invited to meet at Eagle Valley Middle School at 9:45 a.m. A bus will take parents and students to their neighborhoods and they will then walk back to the school.

"We'll talk about it when we all get back and they will let us know what they think about the route and what they have concerns about," Mitchell said. "We will try to address those concerns."

The results will be discussed at Tuesday's school board meeting.

The idea to cut the routes was first proposed two years ago when district officials decided to enforce the policy that states secondary students who live within 2 miles of their respective schools would not receive bus services. Elementary students need to live more than 1 mile from school in order to ride the bus.

However, parents expressed concerns and it was determined that there was no safe route to Eagle Valley Middle School from the area near Empire Elementary School, so the bus service remained.

"There's been a couple of improvements made there including a walking path along Edmonds and a pedestrian crosswalk," said Mike Mitchell. "Now we have a safe way for the kids to walk to school. It really just brings Eagle Valley Middle School into conformance with how we treat the rest of middle school students in Carson City."

The four additional buses will help the district rebound when it lost as many from its fleet when their construction was called into question after a national investigation into the manufacturer of Carpenter buses.

"Those four buses will be reallocated to other areas and used for field trips and athletic trips," Mitchell said.

Thirteen more buses made by the same company are still being investigated. An inspection in April will determine whether they need to be removed.

Contact Teri Vance at tvance@nevadaappeal.com or at 881-1272.