The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Mary Patton
As a former schoolteacher, I’ve seen students miss class for endless reasons: illness, family emergencies or the simple instability of life. But as any educator will tell you, the reason matters less than the result. When a child misses school, they fall behind. When they miss too much, the divide between them and their peers becomes impossible to bridge.
One constant barrier I witnessed throughout my career was transportation. If a child can’t physically get to school, how can we expect them to learn?
In Arizona, this isn’t just an anecdotal problem; it’s a crisis. The Department of Education reports that nearly one in three students in our state missed 10% or more of the 2023 school year. For youth in foster care, students experiencing homelessness, and children with disabilities, those numbers are even higher.
Across the state, families face the same impossible choice: rearrange work schedules and risk their livelihoods or risk their children missing school because there’s no dependable way to get there. Our school transportation system is stretched to its limit, and our most vulnerable students are paying the price.
I worked in schools on the Navajo Reservation, where many of my students lived on dirt roads more than 10 miles out. Reaching the classroom was a challenge on the best of days; on the worst days — when mud made roads impassable or older vehicles failed — it was impossible. Seeing an empty desk simply because a child lacked a ride was the most frustrating part of my job.
Retirement hasn’t dimmed my desire to help these kids. Today, I’m tackling the problem from a different seat: the driver’s seat. I am a CareDriver with HopSkipDrive, a company that partners with schools to provide rides for students who can’t be served by traditional bus routes.
Today, I’m seeing firsthand how we can close this attendance gap by picking up the students who were previously "left behind" by a rigid system. Through the app, parents can track rides in real time and see exactly who is behind the wheel, replacing the daily anxiety of "how will my kid get there?" with a reliable, vetted schedule. The students I drive are visibly relieved to have a consistent way to reach their classrooms when traditional options fail them. For me, this is more than just a flexible way to stay involved in education; it’s a continuation of my life’s work.
But we need to scale these solutions. Parents often ask me why their districts didn’t implement these options sooner. We have a roadmap for success nearby: In California, the Riverside County Office of Education partnered with small-vehicle services to support foster youth. In less than a year, attendance for those students jumped from 29% to nearly 79%.
Arizona can achieve this same progress if we embrace thinking differently about school transportation and looking for all tools – not just trying to make the bus work. Traditional school buses will always be the backbone of our system, but they aren't a "one-size-fits-all" fix. Districts need the flexibility to use other safe, licensed options to reach the kids who fall through the cracks — the ones on the dirt roads, the ones in temporary housing, and the ones with specialized needs.
When kids can’t get to school, our entire community suffers, from workforce readiness to long-term economic growth. Our districts are working hard —and they deserve more support. Let’s give our districts the tools to meet students where they are. When we solve the transportation puzzle, we unlock every child’s potential to learn.
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