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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spokane Public Schools needs bus riders registered and asthma plans submitted

About 2,000 Spokane Public Schools students have failed to register to ride the bus this year.

Failure to do so by Wednesday’s deadline won’t mean your child will be left behind at the bus stop, but it wouldn’t hurt.

“If an unregistered kid shows up, they will ride – we can’t leave kids standing there,” said Mark Sterk, the district’s director of safety, risk management and transportation.

At that point, unregistered children will receive a flyer urging them to register “as soon as possible,” Sterk said.

However, late registration “slows everything down,” said Sterk, whose staff has planned for months to balance routes and stops.

Late registration could overload some stops and buses and change the duration of rides, possibly upsetting schedules.

Since last spring, the district has sent notices via emails and even notification by mail, but roughly a quarter of the expected 8,000 bus riders haven’t responded.

Some of those are the parents of incoming kindergartners and families moving into the district, but most are returnees who registered last year and assumed they didn’t need to do so again, Sterk said.

For some newcomers, the biggest surprise will be the walk boundary. In order to ride the district’s regular buses, students must live inside their school’s attendance area, but outside the established walk boundary – a zone extending around the school at a radius of one mile.

Students within the zone have to get themselves to school, sometimes walking well over a mile to do so if their routes are less direct.

District tightens asthma rules

Beginning this year, all Spokane Public Schools students on record as having asthma must have an Asthma Care Plan, medication orders and an inhaler at school prior to the first day of classes, or they will be excluded from school until these conditions are met.

The deadline for submitting asthma care plans and medications to school is Aug. 24.

During the next three days, the district will host a series of asthma information meetings. Health Services nursing staff will answer questions, receive asthma care plans and medications, and update student health records.

Clinics are from 2 to 6 p.m. Wednesday at North Central High School, Thursday at Lewis and Clark High School and Friday at Rogers High School.

For more information, call 354-7298.