Ah, everyone’s in an uproar. The town got revaluated and all our taxes are going up. So, of course, the school budget, the only part of our taxes we get to vote on, didn’t pass.
For the past 4 or 5 years the school board has held the “courtesy busing” carrot over us as an incentive to get parents to vote. Legally, the school board only has to bus kids who live over two miles from the schools, but due to a major highway cutting through and other busy unsidewalked roads, little by little busing was provided to kids who live within the 2 miles- and I promise, most kids do. It’s a teeny town. It got to the point where every kid in town, including those who live down the street, get bussed (damn, is it one s or two? heh, according to dictionary.com it’s either one.)
So, anyway, every year the school board says if the budget doesn’t pass the busing bussing busing goes bye-bye. And every year, whether it passes or not, the buses keep busing. It’s the board who cried BUSSSSS!
Tonight there will be public meeting to discuss what will happen since the budget didn’t pass, thus the uproar. The emergency snow phone chain was activated and all the families with kids in school got calls to please attend this meeting. Because WE MIGHT LOSE OUR BUSING! Or maybe even our BUSSING!
This is the thing. The buses will still run, but instead of tax money paying for it, the families that use it will pay for it. I repeat, the buses will still run. No kids who need transportation won’t have access to it, and families that can’t afford it (who qualify for federal lunches I guess) will be subsidized by the board.
But, apparently some people would rather cut out the music program, the new engineering program, maybe one or two of those spare teachers? So they don’t have to pay for their kid to ride a bus.
Hey, I like the bussing, I love the bussing. It’s very convenient for me. And I do know that for many families it’s just hard to provide transportation to school (for good and not so good reasons.) That’s why the busses won’t disappear. It would just mean that the people who use them pay, not the elderly couple down the street or the family that prefers to drive or let the kids walk.
There’s a lot more to this than I can/will write about here. This thing is pitting friend vs friend, and IMHO it’s just silly.
So tonight I’ll go to the meeting and maybe I’ll speak up, maybe not. Maybe they won’t even threaten to do away with the courtesy bussing (HA!) If nothing else, it should be a good show.
Now who do I talk to about getting the spelling of busses buses bussing busing bussed bused straightened out?
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary confirms that the plural and intransitive verb forms of bus may be written with either one ’s’ or two. :-)
So, your taxes are paying for kisses, eh? Nice work if you can get it! :-)
buss
tr. & intr.v. bussed, buss·ing, buss·es
To kiss.
n.
A kiss.
[Possibly blend of obsolete bass(akin to French baiser), obsolete cuss(akin to Middle English kissen, to kiss. See kiss) or from Scottish Gaelic bus, lips, mouth. See puss2.]
I’m a “one s” girl myself. I agree with you in principal, except that I think 2 miles is too long a minimum. When I’ve lived in towns (as opposed to farms interspersed with subdivisions), the limit was always one mile. However, if you were inside that, there was simply no bus. Or even buses.
Hmmm…I think the word “bussing” looks correct with the double-s. With the one ’s,’ I want to pronounce it with a long U-sound.
I drive my kids to school because they want to be driven. The funny thing? The school busses stop right in front of our house! They wouldn’t even have to stand outside in the cold and wait for the bus. As soon as they saw it coming down the street, they could walk outside. But noooo…they want Mom to drive them. So I do. Our school busses are paid for in our taxes, so I’m actually paying for the bus service AND paying for gas for my own car to drive them. Go figure.
There always seem to be school referendum “issues” in our area, too. They always get voted down because no one wants to pay any more taxes. It’s a shame that classes have to be cancelled, sports programs are threatened to be canceled and teachers are “let go.” Since we live in Wisconsin, in a county that is included in a certain tax base, we have to pay a tax for the new(er) Miller Park Stadium that is the home of the Milwaukee Brewers. It really irritates me that people will okay an added-on sales tax to pay for the stadium while players are paid in the millions! It’s a game! Besides that, it is so expensive to go to a ball game that it’s no longer a form of “family entertainment.” Limited numbers of people and businesses benefit from the new stadium. So, we are paying taxes for that while the schools have no money. It really irks me!
Why do schools always get next to nothing?? I mean, aren’t they they ones who educate our children??? Go to the meeting, speak up! And I do have to LOL at your busses/buses/bussing/bused……TTF!