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Monday, June 26, 2006
– Approximately 4,000 additional DPS elementary school students will become eligible for busing under a new District transportation policy that will be implemented at the beginning of the next school year.
Under current District policy, students must live a minimum of 1.5 miles from their neighborhood schools in order to be bussed. The new policy, which will not cost the District any money, will reduce this minimum travel distance by half, or three quarters of a mile.
This new policy does not apply to schools of choice or middle or high schools, however. At elementary schools that have middle school programs, sixth, seventh and eighth graders will not be covered by this new policy.
Jovon Boyer, the District’s executive director in charge of the Office of Student Transportation, said this new policy will enhance the safety of DPS elementary age children.
“We want to make sure that elementary school kids don’t have to walk that great of a distance,” Boyer said. “We felt that 1.5 miles was a little long. Also, this way many of them won’t have to cross major thoroughfares like Gratiot.”
Superintendent William F. Coleman III added: “We are always searching for ways to enhance our delivery of services to students. Young students who walk longer distances are more likely to face traffic hazards, particularly as they attempt to cross major thoroughfares in a big city. This new policy will minimize the number of traffic hazards that our students could potentially be exposed to.”
For more information about this new policy, parents may call the District’s Office of Student Transportation at 313-945-8600 or their neighborhood elementary schools.
About the Detroit Public Schools
The Detroit Public Schools, founded in 1842, is one of the nation’s largest public school systems. Detroit Public Schools is a school district of choice and is open to children who live outside the city. The District offers numerous competitive academic and career technical programs.
Among these world-class programs are the Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural School, Michigan’s only public school of its kind; Davis Aerospace, one of few college prep high schools in the country where students can obtain a pilot’s license; the Detroit School of the Arts, a multiple award winning performing arts high school; and Crockett Technical High School, a digital technology high school.
For more information about the District, visit our website at www.detroitk12.org.
