Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sued the Columbus City Schools Board of Education for refusing to transport hundreds or thousands of students to charter and private schools despite the district’s legal obligation to provide the bus service.
“As a parent and grandparent, I understand the importance of making sure every child has a safe way to get to and from school,” Yost said. “These families have a right to choose what school is best for their child, and the law is clear that transportation is to be provided. The School Board needs to comply with the law whether they agree with it or not.”
Yost’s filing, a petition for a writ of mandamus in the Ohio Supreme Court, seeks to compel Columbus City Schools to immediately provide transportation to and from charter and private schools for each student whose family has requested mediation regarding bus service until the mediation is resolved. It also demands that the district provide lists of students for whom they deem transportation to be “impractical” to the charter and private schools, as the district failed to provide legally required notice to many affected families of their right to request mediation.
The district is statutorily obligated to provide transportation for charter and private school students who live within the district’s boundaries and no more than 30 minutes from the public school to which they would be assigned if they attended.
Columbus City Schools has not complied with the law since the start of this academic year for hundreds or thousands of students, calling bus transportation for these students “impractical” and providing parents of those affected with just a few days’ notice, far short of the notice required by law. The district has also failed to provide transportation to students challenging the district’s “impracticality” decision, which is also in violation of state law.
Yost sent a cease-and-desist letter to the district on Sept. 3, questioning whether the district made a calculated decision to defy the law and promising to sue if it didn’t reverse course.
“It appears that the district has chosen to ignore its legal obligations. . ., perhaps calculating that the district is better off paying future non-compliance fines than meeting its current legal obligations,” Yost wrote.
The district’s insufficient response to the letter prompted lawsuit, as the elimination of transportation is causing serious harm to students, their families and charter and private schools.
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