Loudoun County Schools Consider Charging Students for Bus Rides

The Loudoun County School Board will soon ask state lawmakers for permission to charge students for riding the school bus.

Board members adopted their 2015 Legislative Program Tuesday, outlining a handful of state laws the board hopes to change during a legislative breakfast Dec. 5 in Richmond.

The school board hopes the move will allocate enough funding to afford the expansion of full-day kindergarten throughout Loudoun County, which could prove difficult given the $38 million deficit the county schools faced last year alone.

Loudoun is one of only four Virginia school districts that do not already offer a full-day kindergarten program for all students. Adding kindergarten classrooms to accommodate these programs at 46 elementary schools could cost an estimated $52 million, according to the Legislative Program.

Just one fifth of the school district’s 4,864 kindergarteners are enrolled in full-day programs.

Loudoun County has 84 schools and about 70,858 students this school year, compared with 68,289 students in the 2012-2013 school year. Enrollment has nearly doubled since 2004 when just 44,715 students were enrolled in the school system.

The school board did not disclose how much rides would cost or how much the plan could potentially save the school system.