Hoover parents struggle to understand planned bus cuts

Jared Downing | By Jared Downing | The Birmingham News
on July 18, 2013 at 12:13 PM, updated July 19, 2013 at 9:21 AM

Hoover mother Toyia Pride has more cause than many parents to worry about the planned end to the city's bus service. Not only will she have to worry about getting her own daughter to and from school, but as a nanny, starting in the 2014 school year Pride will have to balance carpool for two other kids as well. 

"I guess I'll have to pick up the two youngest ones and leave her till I can get to her." 

Still, she tried to take the news - that the city would only continue busing students with special needs out of the nearly 6600 students who currently use it - with an open mind. She has been following the school system's budget woes and likes the estimated $2.5 million the cuts will save. 

She just wishes it didn't have to be the buses.

"When I first heard about how much money they were saving I thought, 'That's a good thing,'" Pride said. "And it's good that they're saving money, but I thought about the parents who aren't going to be able to rework their schedules to pick their kids up. I just don't like it."

Many Hoover parents share Prides uncertainty, and not all are as neutral-minded. Hoover grandfather Bill Whitman would rather see cuts in athletics before something so basic. Home-school mother Kim Evans won't need the buses, but worries about what it would mean for traffic in the city. 

As for Amie Ramsey, in just a few years her three kids will be in three different schools in different areas.    

"They've lost their minds. I don't know what they're thinking," Ramsey said. "I can't imagine out of such a huge budget they couldn't find several other places they could cut first."

Ramsey said it was Hoover's schools that brought her family to the city in the first place, and the city's recent educational decisions could hit the core of what makes the city attractive for families.

"That's what we've always heard, you live in Hoover because that's where the best schools are. I worry that long term, the entire city may not continue to be the same feel: small town, safe school, safe place to live."

Valerie Salinas lives in Shades Mountain but is zoned for Spain Park schools, which she said will be "a giant haul every day" when her 4-year-old starts attending school. But she hopes Monday's decision was more of a statement than a reality, and suspects the buses won't actually be going anywhere.

"I'm not positive its really gonna happen still. I feel like it might become just a tax," she said. "This might be more showing the budgetary problems... It gets people's attention a lot more than other cuts."

In fact, Salinas isn't convinced they could even shut down the buses if they tried.  

"I keep hearing people say they do it fine in Mountain Brook and Vestavia, but they're set up differently. Hoover is huge and spread out with a lot higher population."

Amy Daniel's family has only been in Hoover a few months, but they're headed out of Hoover.

"We found out about the Jefferson County financial issues and we just didn't want to deal with that."

Daniel said she doesn't know how her city will resolve its financial issues, but when they do, she'll be watching from Pelham.