TUSD will offer express busing in the fall in an effort to improve racial balance at its schools.
Expedited routes will be used to shuttle students from the east side to downtown’s Drachman K-8 and from the Tucson High area to Magee Middle School and Sabino High School on the city’s east side.
While TUSD has previously offered crosstown routes, 90-minute commutes have not helped attract many district families. TUSD is looking to cut travel time to no more than 40 minutes and to limit stops to no more than two.
The express bus to Drachman, 1085 S. 10th Ave., is launching now that the Montessori school was given approval to expand from grades K-6 to K-8. With few Montessori middle school options in Tucson, TUSD says it hopes to attract families from the east side by providing free transportation.
With more than 70 percent of Drachman’s population being made up by Hispanic students, drawing from an area with higher percentages of Anglo students could help the school improve its racial balance.
TUSD intends to buy one bus for the Drachman route and another for the Magee route at a cost of $280,000 each.
Enrollment at Magee Middle School, 8300 E. Speedway, has dwindled over the last decade, and the school was in danger of losing even more students when the district sought to create an honors pipeline from two northeast-side elementary schools to Sabino High School, allowing families to bypass the nearby Magee altogether.
The judge in the district’s desegregation case denied that request and encouraged TUSD to work to make Magee more appealing to families.
Although the school has the highest percentage of Anglo students of any TUSD middle school, the court overseeing the desegregation case recognizes that the school has a healthy racial mix. The express bus is expected to increase the level of diversity by giving students from racially concentrated campuses an opportunity to be in a more integrated environment.
The Sabino express shuttle will use an existing bus and could improve racial integration at the school, 5000 N. Bowes Road. TUSD says it hopes to gather evidence on how many students will ride buses to the northeast corner of the district and how far they’re willing to travel. That could help lead to other transportation initiatives.
The stops are being selected based on parent interest, previous transportation use and projected transportation use.
The district expects that ridership in the first year will not fill a shuttle bus, which has about 50 seats. However, it hopes to determine the potential of the strategy, identify deficiencies, and have a more successful rollout in the second year.
TUSD has also said it intends to wire the express buses for Wi-Fi so students can use the travel time productively doing homework. TUSD, however, does not provide students laptops to take home. Still, TUSD plans to offer the service to students for use with their cellphones or tablets and computers should they bring their own devices.
“While it’s not a necessity, it will be nice to have on a 40-minute bus ride,” said TUSD spokeswoman Stefanie Boe.
To do so will require one-time costs of $2,700 for each express bus to set up the service and to buy and install the Wi-Fi equipment. There is also a monthly rate of $120 to $150 per bus.
‘Recruitment’ bus
In addition to express shuttles, TUSD will launch an enrollment bus that will serve as a recruiting center on wheels.
By improving access to information about TUSD offerings, the bus has the potential to help improve enrollment and integration, the district said. It will cost about $50,000 to retrofit the bus with onboard computers and technology that will allow parents to enroll their children on the spot.
The bus will have a dedicated student recruiter, paid about $15 an hour, depending on experience, and the exterior will be wrapped with a custom TUSD advertisement.
In addition to enrolling students, families can learn about magnet school programs and advanced learning experiences, the district’s family resource centers and clothing banks.
gifted program grows
TUSD’s integration efforts go beyond transportation. In the fall, the district will establish comprehensive gifted and talented education (GATE) programming at the east-side Wheeler Elementary and at Roberts-Naylor K-8 in midtown.
Wheeler will offer self-contained GATE in second and third grade in the fall. Roberts-Naylor will provide self-contained GATE for second-graders and will pilot a pre-GATE kindergarten program.
GATE is traditionally for first grade through middle school.
The expanded offerings are designed not only to attract students and improve diversity; the district also seeks to increase participation among minority students in GATE.
Students currently on waiting lists for self-contained GATE at Lineweaver and Kellond elementary schools will be invited to enroll.
For the pre-GATE kinder program, a test will be administered to interested families to see if the child qualifies. Because Roberts-Naylor is the only school that will offer such a program, the district expects there will be more interest than there are seats available.
To implement the GATE expansion, four teachers need to be hired, at a cost of about $170,000 total.
A national desegregation expert tasked with overseeing the district’s efforts argues that the GATE initiatives are not likely to make the two campuses integrated.
