School districts' concerns rise with fuel prices
Oklahoma school districts' concerns rise with fuel prices

By Tim Talley

Published: May 12, 2008

Superintendent Jim McCharen would like to hire 10 new teachers for his Choctaw-Nicoma Park Public School District to keep pace with a growing student population and keep class sizes down.

But McCharen won't hire any new teachers for the upcoming school year as he struggles to keep the district's yellow school buses on the road and joins a growing list of school administrators across the state who are sapping money from the classroom to keep up with skyrocketing fuel prices.

"We have to cut programs just to buy gas. That's where it gets very frustrating. We get very angry about it,” said McCharen, whose 4,800-student district encompasses about 60 square miles east of Oklahoma City.

"We can't continue to offer all the services we've always offered and function without losing money,” said Terry Simpson, superintendent of Guthrie Public Schools. It typically costs hundreds of dollars to fill up the fuel tank of a school bus, which gets less than 10 miles per gallon of fuel.

"We've got to do something to be more efficient with this.”

This fall, the 3,300-student district will implement a new transportation policy that does away with bus routes for students who live within 1.5 miles of the school they attend.

"It's not mandated, but it is expected,” Garrett said.

Financial problems surrounding rising fuel prices have been compounded by the Legislature's decision to not increase appropriations for school operating costs, including fuel, the cost of school buses, insurance and utilities, school superintendents said.

Figures from the state Department of Education indicate that the state provided about $23.3 million in transportation funding in the 2001-2002 school year although the actual cost of daily bus routes and activity trips totaled about $144.7 million.

In the 2006-2007 school year, the state provided almost $27.8 million in transportation funds although actual transportation costs totaled almost $175 million.

"It takes more money to run a school than it ever has,” Garrett said. "If indeed schools stop the yellow buses from running next fall, it's going to put a great hardship on our families.”

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