BEDFORD HEIGHTS, Ohio — Normally, Kevin McMillon said his daughter’s walk to school is simple.
She would leave their home, walk a few steps and then end up at the end of the driveway to get picked up by the bus.
But now things have changed, making things inconvenient for this family, and they said they want Bedford City School District to address them.
“I would love to see transportation be brought back to the little ones, so they won’t have to worry about getting back and forth to school,” said McMillon.
The start of the school year is approaching for Bedford City School District, which should be an exciting time.
However, McMillon said it’s been a nightmare when the district sent him an email to let him know his 7-year-old daughter is no longer eligible to receive school bus transportation due to the ongoing bus driver shortage.
“This whole time my daughter has been in Bedford schools; she’s been having transportation back and forth with no problem,” said McMillon.
But now, Kevin said he and his family will have to find other means to get his second-grade daughter to and from Central Primary School because, under the district’s Board policy and/or guidelines, Kevin’s daughter lives less than one mile away and does not qualify for transportation.
“It’s not just my kid who’s suffering from this transportation. It’s all the kids that are not over a mile away from their school, so I’m fighting for every kid that’s not getting transportation,” said McMillon.
Kevin said he’s also advocating for other kids who might have to walk to school, like his daughter, since he says his wife works an early morning shift, and they only have one car.
“Anybody can just drive up and snatch any one of these kids,” said McMillon.
That’s why Kevin said he’s going to brave the 14-minute walk with his daughter, which our GPS revealed would be less than a three-minute drive.
“It’s going to be hard for me to even walk that distance every single day because I’m amputee and it’s sometimes hard for me to walk far distances,” said McMillon.
Kevin told News 5 he has remained optimistic his daughter would one day be eligible again and even thought his prayer had been answered early Friday morning when he got an alert saying their daughter qualified for the bus.
But once they double-checked to confirm, they learned this:
“They said no, she’s still a walker, so we got a little confused and, of course, irritated because we’re assuming everything is back the way it needs to be, but just to see that it’s pretty much a slap in the face,” said McMillon.
We tried reaching out to Bedford City School District several times, and they have yet to get back to us, so News 5 will continue to keep you updated on this developing story.
