Schools cancel activity buses

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

March 7, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

Students waiting for activity buses Monday at Bemidji Middle School and the High School will be waiting a long time.

In a cost-saving effort, the school district canceled the service as of Thursday due to a lack of ridership and a strained district budget.

District Superintendent Rollie Morud said the activity bus ridership has been tracked all year, and the numbers decreased significantly during the winter months. By canceling the service after this week, the district will save about $8,000 for the remainder of the school year.

The district could see added savings by transferring the contracted workers who would have been driving the activity buses to other duties.

Coordinator of Transportation Ken Willms said the number of students riding the buses has dropped to an average of about seven kids per route per night, totaling just over 40 kids a night. To make the service efficient there would have to be 20 or more ids riding each of the six bus routes a night, he said.

"Some nights some of the buses didn't go anywhere because there weren't any students to ride them," Willms said.

Students riding the activity buses this week were given notices of the cancellation, Morud said.

The status of the service for next year will have to be determined by the School Board, Willms said. The board would have to re-establish the service, and Morud said he did not know how board members felt about that.

"We've got some budget challenges now, and we have to react to the situation," Morud said. "School districts are just like families. We have to react to circumstances."