In its second year of fruition, Hill said the main reason for switching up to single morning and afternoon routes for K-12 was preparation as the district prepares to move into a new building in the 2027-28 school year.

The financial savings to the district’s transportation budget is just an added benefit.

Leetonia Exempted School District held the second of its community chats Wednesday afternoon to discuss the probability of going to one single bus route in the morning for pickups and afternoon for drop offs.

This will be at least the third district to do so in Columbiana County recently.

At left (front row), Stacey Goodyear holds Sophia, 5, while audience members that include 3-year-old Gavin and Frank Rinto listen to Leetonia school superintendent Tony DelBoccio detail proposed changes to the district’s busing for next year Wednesday afternoon. (Photo by Stephanie Ujhelyi)

Administrators, school board members, bus drivers and coaches were on hand to answer questions concerning the proposed changes.

Though this meeting also was sparsely attended by the public, some concerned parents — mostly of the younger children in the community, who would be most impacted by this change — were on hand for the 45-minute session that was held several hours before the regular March school board meeting.

Leetonia Superintendent Tony DelBoccio detailed the proposed changes, which would transport all K-12 students utilizing busing on one route to and from the campus daily instead of splitting it into two routes for each.

Currently middle and high school students arrive on campus to start their day at 7:15 a.m., while elementary school instruction commences later.

DelBoccio said that it appears all students will arrive at 7:15 a.m. at the campus, exiting the bus at two separate locations depending on if they attend the elementary or the upper grades and start their day shortly after.

Leetonia school district superintendent Tony DelBoccio stands at a smart board displaying an overhead of the campus, as he discusses drop-off and pickup details regarding proposed changes to district busing Wednesday afternoon during a community meeting. (Photo by Stephanie Ujhelyi)

Crestview’s Hill said this is the first year that his district has been on this new consolidated schedule, which has classes beginning at 7:30 a.m. (15 minutes after students arrive) and dismissing around 2:25 p.m.

Although Crestview anticipates tweaking the school day in the future to perhaps run 7:45 a.m. to 2:45 p.m., Hill actually said that research has shown that the earlier start is good for students in the younger days — despite concerns expressed by families during the Leetonia community chat.

United Local Superintendent Lance Hostetler agreed with Hill that although financial savings wasn’t at the top of his list when deciding to reconfigure bus routes, United has been able to save money.

In addition to combating driver shortages that plague many districts, United has enjoyed tremendous savings on items like fuel, tires and even bus turnover since implementing the consolidated busing. According to district treasurer Melissa Baker, since making the switch, expenditures have dropped from $194,298 four years ago to $95,339 last year. This includes items like bus driver uniforms, fuel, fleet, repairs, insurance and tires.

The largest drop can be seen in United’s fuel costs, which were $40,309 last school year and had been running anywhere between twice and three times as much depending on the economy.

Leetonia school district’s Dan Favazzo, the director of transportation, sits next to district bus driver Dawn Tittle Wednesday afternoon during the district’s latest community chat regarding proposed busing changes. (Photo by Stephanie Ujhelyi)

Initially United, like Crestview, made the change to make busing earlier during its construction project.

Leetonia community chat audience members did express a variety of concerns to the district regarding possible increased parking lot congestion during drop-offs and pick-ups, and the intermingling of the grade levels possibly exposing their young children to bullying or more adult-oriented language and content.

However, Crestview’s Hill found that not to be the case in his experience, explaining that often the older students watch out for the younger ones and become like mentors to them during the shared transport.

“We actually have seen a decrease in bus behavioral incident reports,” he added.

United has shared this peer mentorship experience with the busing change, as well, despite the Leetonia attendees being a little skeptical of a peer mentor instead of an adult bus monitor.

All districts said they have assigned seats where the littlest ride up front, and older students (mostly grades 5-9 as they don’t drive themselves to school) sit in the rear of the bus.

Leetonia district director of transportation Dan Favazzo said that he plans to follow suit.

Leetonia is the site of learning for 500 students and Favazzo estimated the older students will occupy the six buses two to a seat with perhaps three potentially (if needed) elementary school students to a seat.

Board member Michele Votaw expressed to audience members that the utmost consideration will be given to making sure children are bused to and from school safely even if it means additional adults being assigned to monitor buses.

District resident Frank Rinto, who is the father of two young children, also asked about the length of bus routes with the change as currently they are running around one hour in length without the potential of additional stops.

Favazzo said with the addition of the sixth bus and route, the bus ride length is around 35 minutes for five of the routes and around one hour for a sixth route.

Hill said Crestview’s 13 bus routes run about 35 minutes in length as well, so Favazzo’s figure wasn’t unrealistic.

The dates and times of future Leetonia schools’ community chat session was not available at press time. For that information, either follow their official Facebook page or visit www.leetonia.k12.oh.us.