Nearly every Meridian School District student who had a seat on a school bus last year will be affected by changes that will begin when school resumes Aug. 30.

Last year, more than 13,000 students at 50 schools traveled 3 million miles on buses, costing the state's largest district about $12 million.

This year, entire routes will have to be eliminated as district officials struggle to offset an almost $1.5 million cut in state transportation funding. Buses will have to travel 315,000 fewer miles if the district is to "operate on the money we know we're getting," said district spokesman Eric Exline.

"The state is defining the quality of service the district can provide. And what they're saying is that the quality of service is going to go down," Exline said.

District buses will run 321 school routes a day this year, compared to 369 a year ago. That means they will make 4,295 stops, down from 5,684 last year. They have eliminated 29 elementary, seven middle and a still undetermined number of high school routes.

The result: Thousands of students who used to catch a bus within sight of their homes will have to walk farther to find a bus stop.

And a review of walk zones, required every three years by the state, means 656 students who rode buses last year will be walking this year. Twelve bus routes serving 10 schools will be scrapped. Under Idaho law, districts can provide bus service to students who live more than 1.5 miles from their schools. Students living closer than that must walk, except in cases where dangerous conditions exist, such as canals, traffic or a lack of sidewalks. Exline said the review shows the safety issues have been addressed.

"There are going to be a lot of parents whose kids are going to be walking next year," said Bridget Colpitts, president of the Meridian Middle School Parent Teacher Student Association.

PARENTAL ANGER IS BUILDING

Many parents are unhappy about their children - especially kindergartners - walking 1.5 miles along heavily traveled streets on dark winter mornings. They worry about the children getting lost while making several turns through neighborhoods, including some where known sex offenders live.

"We're talking about little kids," said Kodi Sivey, a Meridian homemaker. Sivey said she will drive her three children, Abby, 10, Cameron, 8, and Mia, 6, to Hunter Elementary School both ways now that they are in the school's walk zone. "It's not safe," she said. "But we have a school district making decisions based solely on money, whether it's safe for the kids or not."

Lily Bell is incensed over Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna's attempts to dismiss recent U.S. census figures showing that Idaho ranked 49th in the nation in education spending for 2007-08. Luna said what a state spends on education doesn't necessarily translate to improved student performance, and that was proven because Idaho led the country for two years in meeting state and federal education benchmarks.

"We'll see how well students do on their blessed tests after having to get up an hour earlier to walk in the dark fall through spring, in order to get to their school," Bell said.

A year ago, Bell's 13-year-old son, Aiden, caught a bus to Meridian Middle School at a stop around the corner from the family's home in the Fothergill Subdivision. Next year, the expansion of the school's walk zone means he and 26 other students in the neighborhood will have to walk down Meridian Road to Cherry Lane, then turn west to Northwest 8th Street, where the school is.

They could take side streets, but the Ada County Sheriff's Office website identifies at least half a dozen registered sex offenders living within walking distance of Meridian Road.

Bell said driving her son to school also presents problems. She works for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare in Downtown Boise, and it will be difficult to drop her son off at school and be on the job at 8 a.m. His father, a warehouse manager for Albertsons, starts his day at 4 a.m.

Exline said middle school students who start their day at 7:45 a.m. are allowed to arrive at the school as early 7:15 a.m. High school students can arrive as early as 7 a.m. and wait inside the building until the bell rings at 7:35 a.m. Elementary school start time is 9:05 a.m., and children can start to arrive at 8:40 a.m.

Exline said it's impossible for the district to protect walking students from sexual predators.

"The last time we mapped it, there were 169 sexual offenders inside the district. There are now 398. They're everywhere," he said. "If that was a safety criteria, we would have to bus 90 percent of our students. But we don't have the money, and the state is not going to fund it."

He suggested creating large "walking groups" of students from the same neighborhood; carpools where neighbors agree to drive a group of students to and from school once or twice a week; or volunteering to stand at a bus stop until the students have been safely picked up.

"I understand the parents' concerns completely," he said. "I would never let my 5-year-old daughter walk 1.5 miles to school."

JUST THE BEGINNING?

Many parents blame the changes on the Legislature.

In slashing $128 million from the state's public education budget for 2010-11, lawmakers ordered a 10 percent cut in how much each district is reimbursed for the previous year's busing costs. For Meridian, with more than 35,000 students, that meant $1 million in lost transportation money, plus another $369,744 in lost funding because its per-mile cost last year of $3.68, and per-rider cost of $881 were above the state average of $3.47 and $835.

District finance director Alex Simpson said each year the state gives a district 85 percent of what it paid for transportation the previous year. So the latest 10 percent cut ordered by lawmakers means Meridian's transportation funding from the state will be 25 percent below what it cost to operate its bus system last year.

Brad Jensen, director of transportation for the Idaho State Department of Education, said he has been receiving "all kinds of calls" from parents since districts announced major cuts would result in changes.

"A child walking a mile-and-a-half is a long way," Jensen said. "As a parent, I would be concerned, too. But we can't bankrupt the transportation budget. The money is just not in the checkbook."

Things could get worse. Lawmakers have told districts that continuing high unemployment and stagnant sales tax revenues could mean mid-year holdbacks of up to 5.5 percent.

Ali Hinshaw, president of the Sawtooth Middle School Parent-Teacher Association, said she has a solution.

"We need to get some new people in the Legislature, because right now education is not a priority," Hinshaw said. "They're just a bunch of farmers. And until our kids are more important than cattle, nothing is going to change."

Joe Estrella: 377-6465