By KATHERINE PETERSEN
High school athletes throughout the district drive themselves to athletic events, and parents and coaches alike are afraid the situation is an accident waiting to happen.
"We roll the dice every time we go, and I'm tired of gambling," said Sid Castro, Fremont High School's baseball coach.
Castro urged the district's board of trustees April 1 to re-examine the issue of providing buses to transport students to off-site school events. The board last addressed this subject in 1988.
Castro pointed out that when the district sold its buses in the early 1980s, students didn't travel as far to games as they do now.
"The longest distance at that time was from Fremont to Lynbrook. Now we play in games in Milpitas, Los Gatos and Palo Alto," he said.
Students can get lost or distracted when driving, especially in unfamiliar areas, Castro said. "This can be potentially dangerous," he said.
The Fremont baseball team has played games in Milpitas, for which students missed pregame practice because of traffic congestion they didn't anticipate, Castro said.
"Students are emotional before and after a competition, whether they win or lose. An injury would be tragic just to save dollars," he said.
Board members were unable the comment on the issue because to topic was not on their meeting agenda. But the board has the opportunity to place it on the agenda for a future meeting.
Castro acknowledged that the current board had nothing to do with selling the buses.
"We have to go beyond asking parent volunteers to drive," he added.
Laurel McNeil, a Fremont High School parent, said she worries about her son driving students to games and about transporting students herself as a parent volunteer.
"I've done it a lot. And they're great kids. But I would hate to have the guilt of any accident on my shoulders," she said.
Carl Renner, who coaches varsity tennis at Cupertino High School said coaches are also sometimes uncomfortable when taking students to games because of their own liability.
"Many have resigned before they would have retired for that very reason," he said.
The district stopped busing its students in the early 1980s for financial reasons, said Associate Superintendent Mike Raffetto. The district revisited the issue in 1988 with an athletic task force that recommended charging students fees for transportation. The board rejected the plan.
The task force estimated the cost of transporting students to athletic events at $120,000 per year in its 1988 report.
Other districts, such as the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District, provide busing to games but charge students a fee of $60 per sport, said Barbara Kaufman, athletic director at Mountain View High school. "The fees don't cover the costs of transportation, though," she said.
Sandi Stober, field hockey coach at Lynbrook, said that charging a fee might limit some students' participation in sports.
"Some parents couldn't afford to pay the fees for their kids, and other parents might not care if their kids play sports and might not pay the fee. It would impact some schools, but maybe not others," Stober said.
The district's five football teams, which can have up to 45 students each, rent buses to take them to events, but booster clubs and students pay for them, not the school district.
"It would help even if the district provided each school with a couple minivans. Those can hold up to nine or 10 kids," Renner said. Renner usually takes about 13 students to each varsity tennis match the school attends.
It's especially difficult to find transportation for students who participate on junior varsity teams, many of whom aren't old enough to drive, he added.
"We sometimes take up to 15 kids to the JV matches. It's difficult with both parents working in a lot of situations; it's sometimes literally impossible to get parent volunteers to help out," he said.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, April 9, 1997.
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