By Tricia Hempel

ST. LAWRENCE DEANERY — It wasn’t the best way to start a new school year as some Catholic school students on Cincinnati’s west side found themselves without an easy way to get to school.

On Sept. 19, a handful of students at Our Lady of Lourdes School were stranded when the afternoon bus scheduled to pick them up was a no-show. It was just the latest in a series of transportation problems the school has encountered.

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Karen Rusche, principal at Our Lady of Lourdes, said that after parents complained to CPS, an additional bus was provided. However, CPS has informed the school "they will only provide this additional bus for one year," she added. "They don’t want to provide service to families who only want it in the afternoons."

Mary Henninger, assistant superintendent for Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, has been working on the busing situation since before school began. To date, she said, the schools that have experienced problems in this school year include Resurrection of Our Lord, which still has no busing for more than 44 students; St. Francis de Sales; St. Joseph in the West End; St Boniface in Northside, and Prince of Peace, both of which still have a few students without busing, and Queen of Angels Montessori.

Henninger said that "part of the issue is parents who are by themselves in a neighborhood who expect a bus to come to them alone. And sometimes the bus has to drive by several schools to get there. And that is seen as ‘impractical’ by the busing system."

In recent decades, as some Catholic schools have consolidated or closed, transportation issues have arisen with more frequency as parents need to bus children further than they might once have done. The school-choice system of vouchers also enables parents who could not have previously paid for a private school education the opportunity to do so, but the private school may not be as geographically accessible as the public school.

Aware that transportation had become an issue at some area Catholic schools last year, Brother Joe Kamis, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, said he had a conversation during the summer with Woody Fitzmaurice, the director of transportation for the Cincinnati Public Schools.

"We were also in touch with him at the beginning of the school year when our students were not being served as the law requires," Brother Joe said Sept. 27. "I also had a conversation with Rosa Blackwell (CPS superintendent) and with Tom Gunnell, the Cincinnati Public School District chief operations officer. Some of the difficulties were lessened after those conversations, but now they seem to be starting up again."

From his vantage point, Brother Joe said it might seem as though the Cincinnati Public School District doesn’t have the funds to put the law into practice. The Catholic schools office believes it’s up to the parents — the taxpayers — to voice their complaints to the district.

What makes the problem worse, says Kathy Sparks, principal at Resurrection, is that the majority of schools encountering this problem are inner-city schools with a high poverty rate. At her school, for example, she has a 90 percent poverty rate — and no buses at all.

"We’d never asked for buses before, but last January I went to CPS transportation and asked how to get them," she explained. "I was told parents had to request them. So I made up a form that parents could fill out and sent it home, and a large number sent it back."

CPS sent Sparks a note that said that out of the 59 students requesting transportation, 44 met the requirements. But in August, she was told that there was other paperwork that needed to be completed. She did so and is still waiting for bus service. In the meantime, four families have left the school because of the problems.

"They offered to send buses at 9 a.m. and at 3:45 p.m; our day is 7:50 to 2:35," she said, "and I can’t change the school day now that we’re into the year. I asked if they could bus us early and offered to come in at 7 a.m. to monitor the early arrivals , but was told by Tom Gunnell that the situation wouldn’t work."

Sparks cited one family of five students who live 2.1 miles away from the school. CPS will reimburse them $1 a day for the school year, but the family spends $1.50 per child per bus ride. Social workers have tried to get bus passes and tokens from the Free Store, but these have proved to be ineffectual solutions. A donor currently provides the money for the children to come to school in a taxi each day, $7 in the morning, and Sparks herself drives them home from school.

"We have good support with this family," she explains. "Their test scores went up dramatically from their CPS test scores. I know we’re making a difference to these kids, and I am going to help this mother."

Most of her families do not own cars, she noted. They are able to afford tuition because most are voucher students.

"In this day and age, this is called free and appropriate education," Sparks said. "If parents are choosing this school for education, then they are entitled to busing. I read the law."

A week ago, she told Gunnell that she would give up on morning busing for this school year but still needed the afternoon bus. At press time on Oct. 2, she still had not had a response. Additionally, Sparks wants to know what needs to be done now for the next school year.

Said Mary Henninger, "We will fight the busing issue for next year. But parents do have to use it both ways. My motto is ‘use it or lose it.’"

She was also quick to note that the great majority of the 52 districts that archdiocesan schools work with on transportation are responsive and effective; CPS has been the only problem in this school year.