There is a disparity among Georgia schools when it comes to transporting students to and from their homes. Rural areas with sparse populations deal with long ride times, urban areas frequently have overcrowded school buses and a nationwide shortage of bus drivers affects everyone. In addition, the transportation for Georgia’s public schools and public charter schools is also regulated differently.
There have been legislative efforts to address some of these transportation problems, including the authorization of local school boards to use transportation other than traditional yellow school buses for official transportation. Unfortunately, there is still plenty of ground to make up. Some of this will likely have to do with strict regulation of buses and what kinds of “official” transportation schools can use. Another obstacle is the allocation of transportation funds in Georgia’s education funding formula.
A new study published by the Georgia Public Policy Foundation in partnership with the Reason Foundation delves into issues with adequate K-12 transportation, how transportation is funded and ways to improve access in both public and public charter schools.
Rules for K-12 transportation are made and enforced by the State Board of Education, and these include the provision of transportation for students within 1.5 miles of their assigned school as well as bus specifications and safety standards. Georgia’s approach to funding transportation is a reimbursement of costs incurred by districts.
The state allocates funds to districts to cover a percentage of costs like fuel, driver wages, insurance and maintenance on a cost per mile basis. That percentage, listed in the state’s FY2025 budget, is 36.7%, accounting for $353.8 million. The 2025 budget marks a reversal of what had been a diminishing portion of education costs covered by the state. Most transportation costs, in Georgia and the rest of the United States, are covered by local school districts’ tax bases.
The funding system for Georgia charter schools is not only different, but results in an overall funding gap between district and charter schools and should be addressed in several areas. However, even doing so successfully would likely not fix the disparity in transportation, which is hampered by the funding formula’s strict adherence to traditional bus routes, transportation regulations and attendance boundaries.
Because charter schools are not required by law to provide transportation, this study reviewed individual policies from 95 Georgia charters. Only 19 of those offer reliable bus transportation to students outside of a walkable distance. Most charters leave responsibility for transportation entirely on families. Again, this disparity is not merely a case of funding inequity. Charter schools serve larger geographical areas than traditional district schools. This study asserts that, in addition to receiving fairer funding, charter schools must look beyond school buses to meet their transportation needs.
In a larger sense, the heavy regulation of buses limits transportation options. Bus drivers are required to have CDLs, and buses have specific size limits. To try and increase options for their students, some schools have explored purchasing vans for official transportation, but federal regulations and liability risks severely limit this option.
This study offers two kinds of recommendations to address transportation inequity. The first is to directly change Georgia’s school funding formula. This would include giving locally approved charters a full per-student share of local funds and equalizing per-student local funding between state charter schools and the public schools in the districts those charters serve.
The second type of recommendation consists of indirect changes. One of these options is offering transportation subsidies in lieu of services. These could be requested through school districts and subtracted from a district’s payment to a student’s charter. Georgia could also incentivize the adoption of transportation zones in city districts as opposed to single-school boundaries. This would be useful in the case of charter schools especially, as most of them are located in metro areas. District bus routes would give families access to multiple schools in their district.
Finally, Georgia should revisit its regulation of types of transportation. Vehicles sold on the consumer market would be useful in addition to traditional buses, especially vehicles like minivans, which are some of the safest vehicles available.
Georgia lawmakers and policy advocates have spent a lot of time, especially in the past few years, working to improve the state’s education system. This has included expanding access to quality education by advancing school choice initiatives and revising Georgia’s funding formula. Expanding access and improving curriculum are necessary and attainable goals, but they must also be logistically feasible. Disparities in transportation especially limit access to lower-income families, and they negatively affect both urban and rural students. Enabling the exploration of new transportation options in addition to eliminating funding gaps is necessary for the assurance of a fair and robust education system.