CH-UH district's transportation appeal process yields no results

To the Editor:

In May, we submitted a transportation appeal for our daughter. I cannot be more unimpressed, dissatisfied and frustrated over the process and the outcome. We received a letter within a week to tell us that we would hear the result in 30 days. By the first week of August, we had heard nothing. I contacted the CH-UH City School District Transportation Department and was told the committee would be having the meeting in two days and I would be notified. If I hadn’t contacted them, would my appeal ever have been heard? In fact, was my appeal actually considered or was the “denied” form letter simply sent?

We live in University Heights and our daughter goes to Communion of Saints. Based on five mapping websites, we live 2.0 miles from school, which is the required distance for a seventh-grader. One website states we live 1.98 miles away. We’ve appealed this process before and have been told [that] the transportation department’s software puts us at 1.98 miles; therefore, she cannot be bused. Our argument is [that] one software out of six seems manipulative. In addition, we live in [Greater] Cleveland, where sidewalks are not shoveled and walking 1.98 miles home several months of the year takes more than an hour and is dangerous.

What angers me even more is the fact that the bus drives by our house every day. It stops two houses away at the stop sign. It is nowhere near full. How difficult would it be to have my daughter ride? No extra time would be necessary. No rerouting would be necessary.

The school district’s transportation department is lacking in its ability to communicate in a timely fashion. If we had not been persistent, we would have heard nothing. How many other communication attempts are being ignored? The transportation department is lacking in serving the community. Allowing my daughter to be bused would have required nothing more financially from the district and yet, we were denied again.

Kelly Foerg

Kelly Foerg
University Heights

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Volume 8, Issue 10, Posted 9:17 AM, 09.03.2015