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By UAFHNE HUTCHINSON
Rappahannock IWi Staff Writer
Faced with a decision that could impact all bus route extensions, the Rappahannock school board last week agreed to continue paying Mrs. Roy Ellis 50 cents per day to transport her children in fourth and seventh grade to the bus stop one mile from their house.
Superintendent William Bloomer brought to the board Mrs. Ellis’ request for an increase in reimbursement from 50 to 75 cents per day. According to the superintendent, this is the only remaining case in Rappahannock schools where a parent is paid in lieu of transportation. Bloomer recalled that, he and transportation supervisor Allie Huff checked out the road after Mrs. Ellis had requested a route extension three years ago, determined it unsafe for bus travel and so recommended payments in lieu of transportation.
Nelson Lane, representative from Mrs. Ellis’ school district, said she opjy jjlrpve her children in bad weather, that the rest of the time they walked. He opposed granting the reimbursement increase, maintaining it was dangerous precedent to set at a time when the board is considering an end to bus route ■ extensions as part of its transportation policy to conserve fuel.
“We have to make a basic decision—do they all walk a mile or do none of them walk a mile?” said Nancy Reeve. “Do we have bus route extensions or no bus route extensions?" She maintained that if the board required the Ellis children to walk the mile to the bus stop, a distance within the legal walking limits set by the state, then all other children on bus route extensions within those state limits will also have to walk. “Otherwise, it’s discrimination,” she maintained, noting that most of the students on existing route extensions are within a mile of another stop on a main road, according to information supplied by the superintendent. (State regulations allow students under ten years of age to be required to walk up to a mile to a bus stop and students over ten up to a mile and a half.)
Asked for a recommendation, Bloomer replied that he would prefer to see the board compensate Mrs. Ellis for bringing her children out rather than sending the bus a mile in to pick them up.
Describing the superintendent’s response as a “false alternative,” Robert Eastham maintained that legally the board doesn’t have to pay in lieu of transportation or send tha hue in that tka *•»/%
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