Portland school board members: Don't slash bus passes, school bus routes | OregonLive.com

Portland school board members: Don't slash bus passes, school bus routes | OregonLive.com

Portland school board members: Don't slash bus passes, school bus routes

By Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian

April 22, 2010, 6:58PM

Thousands of Portland parents and students would have been shocked to learn that bus passes and bus routes they've come to count on would have been cut next school year under Portland Superintendent Carole Smith's $400 million hold-the-line budget plan for 2010-11.

Those proposed cuts, affecting several thousand students, were buried deep in Smith's budget document and never came to public attention before the school board's budget committee decided this evening to spare families the cuts.

Instead, the board should spend $660,000 from its shrinking savings account to maintain the bus passes and school bus services until the board and families have plenty of time to digest and comment on the potential transportation cuts, probably next year, said David Wynde, chairman of the board's budget committee. Fellow committee members agreed,

Among the cost-saving measures the superintendent and her transportation director had recommended:

• Stop providing a free TriMet bus pass to every Portland Public Schools high school student, something that began this school year. Officials wanted to shave at least $100,000 from the $800,000 the school district spends to provide the passes.
• End yellow school bus service to 2,100 students who attend middle schools. The state doesn't require Portland to bus students to its middle schools, and ending those bus lines would save the district $150,000.
• End free bus rides to and from Outdoor School for 3,300 sixth-graders, saving $20,000.
• Stop bussing students to the Chinese and Japanese immersion programs at Woodstock and Richard elementary schools. No other immersion programs and few other special focus schools provide transportation to their students, and cutting the Richmond and Woodstock bus lines would save $17,000 a year.

Those changes -- which surely would have provoked an outcry -- won't be approved, at least not next month when the rest of the budget comes up for a school board vote, board members said. "We definitely have to give people more notice," said board member Pam Knowles.

Board members said, however, that it may be a good idea to end special optional bus services that are provided to families in certain pockets or

UO reassigns general counsel to law school faculty

by Jeff Manning, The Oregonian

University of Oregon President Richard Lariviere on Thursday moved General Counsel Melinda Grier to the faculty of the university's law school.