DAYTON, Ohio — The Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority is responding after officials with Dayton Public Schools criticized issues with the bus system at a news conference Monday night.
Like many school districts across the country and state, Dayton is struggling to find school bus drivers.
Many students rely on public transportation to get back and forth from school.
“If any customer has a valid pass or a fare medium, they’re going to get on our buses and ride. We’ve just been saying for months out in the community that we don’t think that it’s the best solution to put 3,000 high school students on a public transit system that’s not designed to transport school students,” said RTA CEO Robert Ruzinsky.
Ruzinsky added he was disappointed at what school officials had to say. He said the Dayton RTA is not changing routes to make it purposely difficult for students to get to school and that they will continue to allow anyone with a pass to ride.
He also addressed the issue of safety concerns at the stops and on the buses.
“The Dayton Public School(s) buys 3,500 passes from us on average every month. They distribute those to a lot of charter schools and parochial schools. They say it’s not their students, they are the customer purchasing the passes, they are the ones legally mandated by the state to provide transportation. So to us, it’s their students,” Ruzinsky said.
The school district is working to hire more bus drivers and is looking for other options.
Officials said they need help both from the city and the legislature to come up with a different solution.
