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Although most of the low-income housing is over 1.5 miles away from Lahainaluna High School and Lahaina Intermediate School, the kids are being denied school bus service this year.
They will have to walk two miles uphill to the high school, taking seven classes in one day and having to hike up with half a dozen textbooks in their backpack.
It makes no sense to take away bus routes from our students who live over 1.5 miles away. It's against policy. If students are in grades 6-12, they must have bus service if they live farther than 1.5 miles from school.
In reality, it's all about marginalizing the children and setting them up for disaster. They are from ethnic groups under-represented in homeownership and over-represented in poverty. They are Native Hawaiian, Mexican, Chinese, Marshallese, Micronesian, etc.
The school claims there aren't enough bus drivers, but why can't the bus drivers be paid their worth?
Please show through your actions that our kids are prioritized. Actions speak louder than words. Make policies, pass laws that help prioritize our kids and not marginalize them. Invest in our kids. There should not be a shortage of bus drivers. They should be paid their worth. What's happening is money isn't being distributed where it needs to go.
Please fix this problem immediately by giving incentives to new bus drivers. Raise the pay for bus drivers to keep them.
Kanani Higbee
Lahaina