33-1501. TRANSPORTATION AUTHORIZED. To afford more equal opportunity for public school attendance, the board of trustees of each district, including specially chartered school districts, shall, where practicable, provide transportation for the public school pupils within the district, and pupils resident within adjoining districts annually agreed to in writing by the districts involved, under conditions and limitations herein set forth. Nonpublic school students may be transported, where practicable, when the full costs for providing such transportation are recovered. In approving the routing of any school bus, or in the maintenance and operation of all such transportation equipment, or in the appointment or employment of chauffeurs, the primary requirements to be observed by the board of trustees are the safety and adequate protection of the health of the pupils. Nothing herein contained shall prevent any board of trustees from denying transportation to any pupil in any school bus operated by or under the authority of said board, upon good cause being given, in writing, to the parents or guardian, or either of them, of such pupil.

No board of trustees shall be required to provide transportation for any pupil living less than one and one-half (1 1/2) miles from the nearest appropriate school. A board of trustees may require pupils who live less than one and one-half (1 1/2) miles from the nearest established bus stop to walk or provide their own transportation to such bus stop. That distance shall be determined by the nearest and best route from the junction of the driveway of the pupil’s home and the nearest public road, to the nearest door of the schoolhouse he attends, or to the bus stop, as the case may be. The board may transport any pupil a lesser distance when in its judgment the age or health or safety of the pupil warrants.

A day care center, family day care home, or a group day care facility, as defined in section 39-1102, Idaho Code, may substitute for the student’s residence for student transportation to and from school. School districts may not transport students between child care facilities and home. Student transportation between a child care facility and a school will qualify for state reimbursement providing that the child care facility is one and one-half (1 1/2) miles or more from the school to which the student is transported.

To effectuate the public policy hereby declared, the board of trustees of any school district may purchase or lease, and maintain and operate school buses and vans, which vans shall not have a seating capacity in excess of fifteen (15) persons; may enter into agreements or contracts for the use of a charter bus or buses; may enter into contracts with individuals, firms, corporations or private carriers; or may make payments to parents or guardians, subject to the limitations herein provided, when transportation is not furnished by the district.

History:

[33-1501, added 1963, ch. 13, sec. 79, p. 27; am. 1970, ch. 91, sec. 1, p. 226; am. 1982, ch. 92, sec. 1, p. 170; am. 1985, ch. 241, sec. 1, p. 570; am. 1991, ch. 177, sec. 1, p. 440; am. 1999, ch. 373, sec. 1, p. 1020.]