Under House Bill 96, the state’s most recent budget bill, DPS students could not transfer through the downtown Dayton Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority bus hub using passes that had been purchased by DPS.
The law followed the death of Alfred Hale III, a Dunbar High School senior who was killed on his way to school in April near the downtown bus hub.
The Dayton Public School board of education sued the state last week to stop enforcement of the law.
The case is not finished. A judge will still need to hear the merits of the case, which argues that Ohio can’t single out Dayton under the Uniformity Clause of the Ohio Constitution. As written, the law only applies to Dayton Public Schools.
Lawrence said the district is taking the safety of students seriously. When students come to pick up their passes, they will need to show a student ID, Lawrence said, and they and a guardian will need to sign a safety agreement with the RTA.
Students will also have to wear a visible student ID badge while riding the bus.
Passes will be available to parochial and charter school students as well, since state law requires that DPS provide the same busing to all students living within its boundaries. The district is not mandated by law to bus high school students on yellow buses.
Lawrence said the district will also be sending the security team to the RTA bus hub again, which costs the district about $30,000 per month.
“We don’t want the community to think we’re not concerned about safety of students,” Lawrence said.
The bus passes were left over from last year, Lawrence said. The school board voted over the summer not to purchase bus passes this school year.
Other districts in Montgomery County, such as Huber Heights City Schools, don’t bus high school students. But Huber Heights does not purchase bus passes for students.
Lawrence also said he felt if the city could uphold the level of safety downtown during the recent NATO assembly in May, it could occur again.
“If the level of safety was upheld, we wouldn’t have these issues,” he said.
He noted that DPS students have been targeted by violence this year.
The Board of Education is expected to pass a resolution on Tuesday regarding all expectations of students receiving RTA passes, DPS officials said. A board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.
What the court said
Franklin County Judge David Young and Magistrate Mark Petrucci heard the case for a temporary restraining order, which would block the law from being enforced.
The two noted that high school students and their families may be harmed if they did not grant the order.
“The public interest is served by granting the order,” the two wrote in their opinion granting the TRO. “There is a strong public interest in education and ensuring that Ohio’s students have the opportunity to attend and finish high school.”
RTA response
The Greater Dayton RTA said in a statement that they will “comply with the ruling and sell DPS bus passes upon request.”
“RTA maintains that public transit is not the most effective solution for meeting the daily transportation needs of these students,” the bus system said in a statement. “RTA routes run across the entire county and focus on getting riders to work, medical appointments and other essential trips. The routing, frequency and timing of public bus routes are not conducive to meeting the unique needs of students and the numerous schools across our service area.”
The RTA says it has about 75 buses on Montgomery County streets serving the whole county.
“That is the same number of buses DPS officials indicated they would need to fully serve the needs of Dayton high schools alone,” the RTA said. “Redeploying those to meet the needs of just one school district would mean we could not provide other services to the rest of Montgomery County.”
State legislator response
Phil Plummer, one of the politicians who held a joint press conference in April about stopping students from transferring through the downtown bus hub after the death of Dunbar High School Student Alfred Hale III near the downtown bus hub on his way to school, said he feels that DPS could find another solution to get students to school.
He said the district was in negotiations with him and city leaders for four months before the law was formally passed.
“We had good negotiations with them,” he said.
There were discussions with the RTA to pick up students at alternative locations, such as Welcome Stadium, which is owned by DPS.
Plummer said those negotiations essentially stopped, though, when the district found out the provision to block big city schools from buying bus passes for their students was removed.
Lawrence said this was not true, and the district continued to have meetings through the summer.
“It’s disappointing the lack of leadership over there,” Plummer said. “It’s not what our kids deserve.”
He added, “I’ll go back to the table to negotiate with them. They need to make an effort to fix it.”
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