Parents United for Public Education has been working for months to stop a District proposal to cut thousands of students off from free transpasses as part of a deficit-reduction plan.

Last fall, Gov. Rendell, Sen. Vince Fumo and SEPTA officials held a big press conference announcing that, for the first time, students in Philadelphia would get what students across the state already receive – free transportation for grades 7-12. For all students living more than 1.5 miles from school, the state and SEPTA would fund free transpasses. This applied to all parochial and charter students as well as public.

Unfortunately, after the media headlines the cost issue was a lot different. Because of the expansion of passes, the District’s transportation costs tripled to over $30 million. But the state refused to reimburse about $7 million in the District’s transportation costs, partly because they are reneging on the 1.5 mile requirement. State minimums are supposed to be two miles or more. So now the District is weighing how to save about $4.2 million by either instituting an 85% attendance requirement on transpasses (an issue that would impact only Philadelphia public school students, not parochial or charter) or extending the mileage requirement from 1.5 miles to 2 miles. Either way thousands of students lose.

The good news is that parents have gotten the attention of city and some state officials, but apparently not SEPTA. From today’s Inky :

Not so fast, said SEPTA general manager Joseph Casey. The agency already gives the district a discount for TransPasses, and it has agreed to pay the district $3.5 million for administering the program, per a deal cut with the state last year.

"If they have an issue with the amount of money or the distance, it's really between them and the Department of Education," Casey said. "They can go anywhere they want to, to try to get the money, but it's not our issue."

City Advocate Lance Haver pointed out to me that 80% of SEPTA’s local match is funded by city taxpayer dollars, and that SEPTA is sitting on a $130 million rainy day fund.

One of the things we need to build is a sense of communal responsibility for the schools. Let's be clear: the School District of Philadelphia pays for a variety of costs that have nothing to do with traditional public school students - like transporting parochial, charter and private school students to school, say, or maintaining pools for private swim club use, or providing non-District after school and summer program space. They do it because there's a sense that schools ideally need to function as a community anchor in neighborhoods that often lack one. But in return we need to own our public schools, whether we have children in them or not.

Transportation is an issue of basic access to education, and for that reason, it’s not just a school issue, or a Dept. of Ed issue. It’s a city issue because truants are a city issue, because drop-outs are a city issue, and because crime and violence by and against children is a city issue.

If you have time, join some of us today at the SEPTA board meeting to remind SEPTA that in some cases, our issues are intertwined.

SEPTA BOARD MEETING
Today, June 26th
3 p.m. sharp
1234 Market Street