NAACP Dayton Hosts City Leaders Discussing Bussing Changes

President of the Ohio State Conference NAACP Tom Roberts and Dayton Branch NAACP President Derrick Foward (Photo courtesy of Dayton 24/7 Now)

The meeting table was full Monday afternoon as local and state representatives discussed bus safety for Dayton Public Schools and charter school students. 18-year-old Alfred Hale, a Dunbar High School student, was killed back in April near the RTA hub on Jefferson Street while waiting for a bus. This prompted conversations with Dayton city leaders, state representatives, and Dayton Public Schools about how to keep student bus routes out of downtown areas. DPS does not currently have yellow buses to transport their 9-12 students, requiring them to ride public RTA routes to get to school.

“The students have told us that they prefer, that they prefer, to be on their yellow bus with their colleagues,” said Dr. Derrick L. Foward, President of NAACP Dayton.

“The reason why we're working with the legislature right now is to find some of the better ways of improving those options to make Dayton in its entirety a safer place, a safer city. And it starts with keeping our young people safe,” added Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims.

State Representative Phil Plummer has championed an amendment to the state’s operating budget that would prevent DPS from transferring students at the RTA hub downtown. He said leaders have to take care of local children.

“We've seen where it’s not safe. It takes a long time for our kids to get to school, get back home, and it's just not the right thing to do to our children. You know, those are our precious gifts. So we got to take care of our children. So you have a very short timeline because the budget goes in effect first of July. So we have to come up with a short term solution and a long term solution to solve this problem,” said Representative Plummer.

They said the statewide transportation system is outdated, so the solution that the city, DPS, and our state representatives come up with could have an impact statewide.

“We know that many school districts in Ohio have the same or similar situation. So we're looking at it from how can we do a statewide conversation,” added Tom Roberts, Vice President of NAACP Dayton.

“Everybody understands the brevity of what's at stake. And I believe, you know, I'm very optimistic that we will be able to come up with some short term and long term solutions working together,” added Dr. Foward.

The next meeting will be held in two weeks to re-discuss some of the short and long term solutions brought up Monday to hopefully come to a decision before the state budget goes into law on July 1st.