With many Cy-Fair ISD bus routes canceled ahead of the 2024-25 school year, the district’s police department is offering free school crossing guard training to neighborhood groups, officials announced Aug. 27.

Officials said these volunteers will not replace CFISD staff who are assigned to serve as crossing guards at campus entrances.

The background story

Due to budget constraints, the CFISD Board of Directors on June 17 approved a plan to reduce transportation services to save approximately $4.78 million in the fiscal year 2024–25 budget.

Although the district has provided bus service to all students for many years, elementary students within one mile of their campus and secondary students within two miles of their campus were not eligible for bus service this school year.

The recommendation came from the district’s Budget Reductions Advisory Committee, which met several times during the spring to discuss possible areas for budget cuts.

During an April 22 board meeting to discuss budget cuts, officials said that about 70% of the district’s students would ride the bus in 2023-24 and that the proposed cuts plan would make about 41,000 students ineligible.

Trustees at the time expressed concerns about how this change could potentially affect student attendance, safety and traffic, and could lead to longer queues for motorists, forcing staff to work longer hours.

Nevertheless, in June the board unanimously approved the 2024-25 budget, including the transportation cuts.

What they say

After communicating these changes to parents over the summer, board members heard and responded to the community’s concerns at their August 12 meeting.

Trustee Christine Kalmbach said she regretted voting on that portion of the budget. Trustee Natalie Blasingame apologized for the “failure” of the board and county leadership in not communicating the transportation changes sooner.

“I would say I challenge all of us to do better,” Blasingame said. “Safety is our number one job so we can do our number one job, which is to educate your children — make sure they can read, write and do math.”

Parents also expressed concerns about the changes on August 12, just a week before the start of the school year.

“We were notified 18 days before school started, which is completely unreasonable for parents to make responsible decisions about how to get their children to school, and that’s very discouraging to me,” Jarred Hostetler, a CFISD parent, said at the meeting. “They are the experts at getting children to school en masse – not the parents.”

Get active

Volunteers from homeowners’ associations and municipal utilities can take part in a two-hour training course to become school crossing guards. Registration is possible here.