Jacksonville District 117 school officials have shown how an awareness of the changing societal needs of the children and parents it serves can create good policy.
School districts are often lightning rods for criticism whenever a change is made — it isn’t easy, after all, to make rules for such diverse situations as exist in even smaller communities.
Sometimes it seems people don’t recognize when school officials get it right.
Jacksonville got it right when it comes to easing transportation policies for younger students who might need to go somewhere other than their own house for after-school care.
The district’s policy is that transportation is typically providing only for students who live more than a mile and a half away from the school they attend. Prior to last week, there was no exclusion made for a child who spent the afternoon hours at a location other than home even if it was farther away.
Superintendent Steve Ptacek, acknowledging that many younger students today are from homes in which both parents work during the day, recommended the change in transportation rules to allow those students to ride a bus along already established routes to get to those locations.
School board members were right to question the details of the policy change to ensure such a move was manageable and did not add cost to the school district and, in turn, taxpayers.
As Ptacek explained, the change only applies to students under age 14 — the age at which the state says a child can be home alone for an extended period — and only for consistent transportation needs, not a day here and a day there.
Because the children would have to travel along already established routes, there is no added expense.
“We have extra seats on the buses,” the superintendent said.
For those traveling to a location not part of the already-scheduled route, arrangements can be made for care-givers to pick the students up at central locations along the way.
It is estimated as many as 845,400 students in Illinois receive some form of after-school care, whether through an established day-care or some other care provider. Countless others often return to empty houses to care for themselves until a parent arrives home for the day — a situation that is not always the safest or best for younger children.
Jacksonville District 117 has made a progressive move in showing education is about more than bricks and mortars; it is about adapting to real-life situations to create solutions that benefit students, parents and the school system alike.
