Parents in the Ramona Unified School District say school bus route cuts are leaving some students with long walks home, including during a heat wave, as the district consolidates routes amid an ongoing driver shortage.

Under the district’s policy for middle and high school students, a student must live more than 2.5 miles from school to qualify for bus transportation. That distance is calculated as the crow flies rather than by the student’s actual walking route.

Bud Kaelin, whose son is a sixth grader in Ramona Unified, said the district removed a bus stop at 14th and H streets where he wanted his son dropped off. Kaelin said the change leaves his son facing a 3.5-mile walk home and that the district will not allow him to use another stop. “They cut us off completely from getting any kind of, a ride on the school bus,” said Kaelin.

Kaelin added he does not want his son walking more than a mile, particularly during the heat wave, because he worries about the possibility of heat exhaustion affecting his ability to safely cross streets.

“Could he be in some kind of serious situation to where, like, he was feeling like a heat exhaustion and his vision was impaired trying to cross the street, and he thought it was a stop car, but it wasn’t and he walked out in front of that car?”

Kaelin said the district told him his son’s previous stop was not safe but would not allow him to select another stop. He said he has been leaving his construction job three hours early each day during the first week of classes to pick up his son. “Today, my boss just told me it looks like the crew coast is getting heavy. So, that’s not going to be good for me tomorrow,” Kaelin said.

Kaelin later said having to leave work early to handle his son’s transportation had cost him his job.
Another parent, Mary Emily, questioned the district’s use of straight-line distance to determine transportation eligibility. “As the crow flies is, you know, pretty, pretty vague. And yeah our kids don’t fly… They walk.”

In a letter to families, Ramona Unified said it had to consolidate routes because of ongoing driver shortages and that the changes were the safest way to maintain transportation for as many students as possible.

Emily said she believes the district has been inconsistent in how it applies safety considerations when making transportation decisions. “You’re picking and choosing here, like one day. ‘It’s not a safety concern. It’s as a crow flies. Y’all eat the s- sandwich and deal with it.’ And this is what we’re doing. And then the next it’s ‘well, that’s a safety concern,” Emily said.

Emily lives on Hope Street, where she said the district removed a bus route. She said the change leaves her 15-year-old daughter with about a mile walk to the next bus stop.

Emily said she wants more information about how the district decides which stops and routes to eliminate. “What are the stats that we’re looking at? Is it the number of kids per stop? Is it, you know, how much money is coming out of this stop?”

She also called for greater communication between the district and families. “What can we do to help remedy these situations and be more transparent with the community, Emily asked.”

Ramona Unified has not responded to NBC 7’s requests for more clarity about the situation.

This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.