Students at Placer High School no longer have the option to take the bus to and/or from school. 

 The cause behind this matter has been unknown to the majority of students at our school.

 “It seems to be a dwindling service available for students here.“ says Tim Trokey, Assistant Principal of Placer High. “It is unknown when the buses will be back.“

School transportation is a necessity for many students that attend Placer High. This has mostly impacted freshmen and sophomores, who do not have the option to drive themselves yet.

This issue has angered various guardians of the students at Placer. The main question on all of the minds at PHS is when will taking the bus becomes an option again, and why did the service disappear in the first place? 

According to Mike Sabins, one of the athletic directors at Placer, a primary reason is because of how low wages are for bus drivers. 

“Their (Mid Placer Public School Transport) reasoning is that bus driving can be a very stressful job due to the disrespect a driver can get from students on a bus.“  said Sabins, “The wages seem not to be high enough for such a difficult job, so as a result, there aren’t any applicants.“

Being put in a disrespectful situation with high schoolers isn’t worthy of the pay Placer offers to potential bus drivers. This is a key reason why we don’t currently have a busing system. 

The training to become a bus driver is long and tedious, and since COVID-19, the training has become stricter and more difficult. People just don’t want to put that much effort into a low-salary job. 

“The schedule for the bus driver is difficult, there’s a very long summer break so people don’t like the idea of being out of work for so long.“ said Trokey, “it’s an overwhelming job.”

This problem has not affected the attendance rate at Placer High School, the number of students coming to school has been the same as when we had buses. There has been, however, an increase in the tardiness of students since the buses have been gone. 

Freshman Ava Williams, who has taken school transportation all of her life, stated that ever since she lost the opportunity to take the bus in the morning she has been late more frequently. 

“ My parents leave for work at 5:00 in the morning, ” said Ava, “ so I’ve had to take public transit to school and the bus is always late. “

Students being uncontrollably tardy has been one of the many issues since buses have been gone. 

There are a vast number of reasons for not having a source of transportation in the morning and after school has been a struggle, this has resulted in kid’s having to walk home in the rain, during heatwaves, raising community concerns.

“Ava had to take two hours walking home from school one day.” Stated Ava’s mother. 

Students are hoping and praying that buses will return sooner rather than later and that it will be a school-wide option like it once was.