The Blue Bird Blues

September 9, 2025

Good Tuesday morning,

A recent Associated Press story written by Julie Carr Smyth that was picked up by media outlets across Ohio and the country put a white hot spotlight on the issues surrounding public schools being forced to bus private school students even if it means their own students don’t have a ride to and from school.

“Public school districts canceled bus transportation for thousands of high schoolers again this year while in some cases still busing students to private and charter schools to avoid steep fines under state requirements,” Carr Smyth wrote in her AP story.

Making matters worse? There is a bus driver shortage in Ohio in large part because anti-public school lawmakers pile on the regulations and withhold state support dollars to local public schools.

Public schools, according to Carr Smyth, are required to transport K-8 students to private voucher schools even on district holidays or when buses break down.

Dayton City Schools Superintendent David Lawrence is quoted in Carr Smyth’s story.

He refers to the transportation issues as “madness.”

Lawrence told Carr Smyth “the Republican-led Legislature diverted roughly $2.5 billion in state education funding to the voucher program over the next two years — and still is requiring public districts to foot transportation costs for those students.”

Dayton runs 54 bus routes for Dayton students, and 74 bus routes for non-public students.

That is madness.

No one, including the state, can say how much money public schools are paying across Ohio to transport students to private schools.

The legislature did put together a study group to look into one transportation issue and one alone: how public schools can get non-public school students bused on days when the public districts are closed.

The study group is scheduled to have a report back in June, 2026.

Is your district part of our historic lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the EdChoice private school voucher scheme? Check here.

If not, why not? Learn more here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio