Walk zones around Cline Elementary and Friendswood Jr High were unanimously approved at the recent meeting of the Friendswood ISD School Board.
The Texas Education Agency provides a transportation allotment for school districts providing regular route services when a student lives further than two miles from the school (TEC, §48.151).
Currently, Friendswood ISD is providing regular routes that are within two miles and is not receiving state funding. Board members were told that in recent years, it has become increasingly difficult to find bus drivers and the transportation route times have become longer as the need to double run certain areas of the district.
The district reports that the new Cline Elementary and Friendswood Junior High are both located within a neighborhood with ample sidewalks. FISD administration proposed and the board approved a walk zone of 0.5 miles around Cline Elementary and 1.0 around Friendswood Junior High.
Bus transportation will not be provided in these areas once the walk zones are used. Transportation will be provided to all students at FJH regardless of distance that live across FM 518 for safety purposes.
This will go into effect beginning with the 2023-2024 school year and will allow for the elimination of two regular routes to assist with transportation to the two new zones within the current time start times for all schools. Maps of the proposed zones were given to board members to show the areas where transportation will no longer be provided.
The district does not know the exact number of students that will be impacted by this change next year, but they do know that there are currently 153 students registered for transportation to the current Cline campus and 133 current FJHS students.
