Alexandria City High School (ACHS) students’ days of taking the school division’s yellow school buses to and from school may be numbered.
A memo from new City Council member Abdel Elnoubi and Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley asks city staff to explore the feasibility of transitioning transportation of high school students to the city’s DASH bus network.
Elnoubi said in a City Council meeting last week that city staff should work with Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) and DASH to see what that transition would take, but it could lead to phasing out the yellow school buses for high school students and instead have ACHS rely fully on DASH.
Alexandria’s DASH buses have been fare free since 2021 and the network has seen record-high readership in recent years.
ACHS, meanwhile, has struggled with providing bus transportation to students and had to reschedule student releases due to a bus driver shortage.
Elnoubi said the discussion has come up before on the School Board, where he served before joining the City Council, and suggested using the School-Council subcommittee to further that exploration.
“This would have several benefits,” Elnoubi said. “Right now there’s a shortage of bus drivers, so that would free up some resources for ACPS to focus on middle and elementary school transportation. We also have budget issues, so anywhere we can work together to save some money would be great.”
Elnoubi said the proposal could require an expansion of DASH, which could see benefits across the network.
“It’s been brought up before… but it’s time to explore it to see what the impact would be on our budget and ACPS’ budget,” Elnoubi said.
Elnoubi cited HB 937 which saw the General Assembly nudge school boards to encourage alternatives to taking students to and from school on school buses.
Bagley said this process should start in this budget cycle, but there would be a few months for feedback and public engagement.
“This isn’t a come back in two weeks with more information item, it’s intended to be a thorough process,” Bagley said. “It could take a month or two before there’s some feedback, but ideally there’d be some information as we head into the budget process.”
City Manager Jim Parajon said the turnaround for including the proposal in this year’s budget cycle could be tight, but Bagley said the main point of the item is to get the ball rolling.
