Meadowdale High School senior Peris Thomas wants state leaders to pass a law allowing all public school students to use public transportation without needing to pay or get a pass.
“Why can’t the students get on for free because you took away their only form of free transportation?” she asked.
On Wednesday morning in Columbus, she and about 30 Meadowdale high schoolers met with legislative aides in the Ohio's Capitol.
The senior and others said a big problem is the lack of school buses for Dayton Public School’s high schoolers.
Currently, many students use the Greater Dayton RTA, Montgomery County's public transit, to get to and from school. They get a bus pass at the end of the school day.
The group told legislative aides stories of schools running out of bus passes so students had to figure out a way home.
Thomas rides the city’s buses and says the biggest challenge is the RTA schedule.
"With the weather that's going on, there are people who have very bad health conditions at our school who can't be outside for an amount of time waiting for that bus," Thomas said. "The bus runs on their schedule, not the students' schedule. There are students who have to go to work. Students who have to help be caregivers to their family members who are ill.”
The state’s school funding plan addresses the need for more busing, said Dakota Bidgood, aide for State Rep. Phillip Robinson, who is on the Primary and Secondary Education Committee. However, he said state budget changes are stalling this effort.
"Public school districts have to do more to accommodate community and charter, community and charter schools and private schools in terms of transportation, which, as you've sort of articulated, has partially led to your problem," Bidgood said. "This is something that needs to be addressed. There's just a lot of people that don't understand that there's just some school districts that don't have buses."
The group also spoke with State Rep. Willis Blackshear Jr. and told him about the need for expanded mental health, music and arts programs.
