DADE CITY, Fla. (WFLA) — Very shortly after she separated from her former husband earlier this year, Darcy Brune started calling Pasco County Schools, trying to get a bus pass for her 16-year-old son. But after weeks of calls all the way up to Tallahassee, she couldn’t get the pass for her house.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Brune said. “You have hundreds of parents in Pasco County that are divorced and the children have two legal residences. Why can’t they have two bus passes?”
Brune’s son only has a bus pass for his father’s house, not Brune’s house.
“I was really disappointed, and I’m all about fair and equitable, right?” Brune asked. “I’m a taxpayer in the county, so it didn’t make sense to me.”
In a statement to 8 On Your Side, the district said, “We recognize the challenges this can present, but the district does not have the drivers available to reserve two seats on two buses for students. Many of the efficiencies we are attempting to achieve with route reductions would be lost.”
“We just don’t want to get into the habit, if you will, of making a mistake of putting the kid on the wrong bus when they shouldn’t have been there,” said Pasco County Schools Superintendent Kurt Browning. “Then they get dropped off and guess what? It’s the wrong day.”
Last year, the district eliminated dozens of bus routes that were within a two-mile radius of the school. But Brune lives nearly four miles away from Pasco High School, where her son is a junior. She doesn’t want him walking or biking that potentially dangerous path.
“We’re under heat advisory every other day here,” Brune said. “Do you really want a child walking at one in the afternoon, or two in the afternoon?”
She’s not sure how she will make this school year work. She said she will probably drop her son off before school in the morning, then use her lunch break during work to pick him up. But if there’s any kind of conflict, he could be waiting a while. She said she’s heard of kids taking Ubers to school, or parents sneaking their kids on the bus.
“Our children and our community are our future and we want to keep them safe,” Brune explained. “We want them to get to school easily and safely and we want to treat every parent equally. It doesn’t matter if your child has two households or one, they should be able to get to school safely.”
Pasco County Schools, in their statement, also said, “Additionally, there are other considerations that come with providing two bus passes (for example, safety at the elementary level in particular and challenges with specialized transportation).”
“It’s been a standing policy in this district,” Browning explained. “We issue one bus pass and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”
While Brune only has a couple of years of bus issues to deal with, she worries about separated parents who have much longer to go than her.