Oregon Public School Transportation Funding - The Chalkboard ...

Figure 9: Distribution of Districts by Bus Ridership
Source: ECONorthwest analysis of ODE data
Special Education in Restrictive Setting (SERS)
Providing transportation services for severely disabled children can pose a
financial and operational challenge for a school district. Because the needs of
severely disabled children often differ substantially from those of other children,
districts either explicitly or on a de facto basis operate two transportation services.
Unlike regular school bus routes, where the cost incurred by the district to serve
one additional student is very small, the cost of serving one additional severely
disabled child may be many thousands of dollars per year. In some instances, a
single bus, driver, and driver’s aid must be assigned to an individual student in
order to safely provide transportation services from and to the child’s home.
Districts are not required to account for the costs of special education and regular
bus services separately, so it is not possible to conduct a district-by-district or
statewide analysis of spending on special education transportation separately from
spending on regular transportation, nor is it possible to obtain a complete tally of
the number of special education students provided transportation services by the
district. However, based on the interviews with school districts, it is believed that
special education may account for as much as 40% of total school transportation
spending.
School Transportation ECONorthwest January 2009 Page 42