Leander Parents Upset After School District Cancels Bus Service

CEDAR PARK, TX — Parents of children in the Cypress Bend neighborhood whose kids attend Leander ISD schools are concerned after receiving news that a school bus route will be discontinued next school year.

Children from that neighborhood attending Naumann Elementary School won't be able to take the bus to get to school next year after the district decided to end the route, KVUE reported.

In response to parent's concerns, Leander ISD spokesman Corey Ryan said the neighborhood was never guaranteed bus service given its close proximity (within two miles) of the school, the news station reported. What's more, Ryan added, the area wasn't deemed "hazardous" in the latest evaluation — one of several factors taken into account when the district decides which areas get bus service, according to the report.

That's no comfort to concerned parents who point to to heavily trafficked Cypress Creek Road some students will have to start crossing next year as they hoof it to and from school in the absence of bus service. Other parents called attention to walkways along the route that are unusually close to the roadway where speed is posted at 45 miles per hour as another area of concern. Still other parents pointed to the poorly lighted stretches of roadway along the route as yet another concern.

To ensure that her concerns weren't viewed as merely an abstraction, one mother filmed herself walking the route to the school and posted it on Facebook. In the recreation, the darkness of the morning when her children would start their walk to school is highlighted.

"See how dark it is out here?" the parent Michelle Caldwell says in the video showing her 8- and 11-year-old children on a dry run of their future walk to school. "And it's not even fall or winter time."

Caldwell said she planned to speak to the Leander ISD board of trustees on Thursday, inviting other parents to do the same in attempts to salvage the bus route. She added that the district should have first sought input from parents and other community members before deciding to cancel the bus service.

>>> Read the full story at KVUE

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