Kids forced to walk miles home in scorching SoCal heat after school bus cuts

Kids are being left to hoof it home in the scorching Southern California heat after school bus cuts — with one sixth-grader facing a 3.5-mile slog because his stop was axed.

Parents in the Ramona Unified School District in San Diego County say students are being caught in the middle of an ongoing bus-driver shortage, with route consolidations forcing some children to walk far longer distances to get home.

And one parent fears the current heatwave could turn an already brutal walk into a serious safety hazard.

Bud Kaelin said his sixth-grade son lost his bus stop at 14th and H streets after the district changed its routes.

Officials told Kaelin the old stop was unsafe, but wouldn’t allow his son to use another one.

Now, Kaelin said, the boy could be facing a 3.5-mile walk home.

The distance is measured in a straight line, “as the crow flies,” rather than by the streets students actually have to walk.

Kaelin said he doesn’t want his son walking more than a mile, especially during the heatwave.

“Could he be in some kind of serious situation where, like, he was feeling heat exhaustion and his vision was impaired trying to cross the street, and he thought it was a stop car, but it wasn’t and he walked out in front of that car?” he asked.

So Kaelin started leaving his construction job three hours early every day during the first week of classes to pick up his son.

He claimed the bus mess cost him his job.

“Today, my boss just told me it looks like the crew cost is getting heavy. So, that’s not going to be good for me tomorrow,” Kaelin said.

Emily said her own 15-year-old daughter is now facing about a q-mile walk to the next bus stop after the district eliminated a route on Hope Street.

“What are the stats that we’re looking at? Is it the number of kids per stop? Is it, you know, how much money is coming out of this stop?”

Emily also accused the district of picking and choosing when safety matters.

“You’re picking and choosing here, like one day. ‘It’s not a safety concern. It’s as a crow flies. Y’all eat the s—t sandwich and deal with it.’ And this is what we’re doing. And then the next it’s ‘well, that’s a safety concern,’” she said.

Ramona Unified told families in a letter that it was forced to consolidate routes because of the ongoing driver shortage.

The district said the changes were the safest way to keep transportation running for as many students as possible.

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