In a memo that amplifies the tension between the Ohio Attorney General's office and the Columbus City Schools, Dave Yost pressures the Ohio Supreme Court to let the state's busing lawsuit forward. Making a partial concession, the district has taken to the roads shuttling around 100 previously stranded private- and charter-school students. Still, as Yost underscores, this gesture hits far wide of solving the rampant denial of transportation facing "untold numbers" of students. "It remains to be seen whether the district will live up to its press release and really transport these children," Yost told the Ohio Attorney General's newsroom.
The genesis of the lawsuit, filed last month, roots in the district's flouting of an Ohio law mandating transport for thousands attending schools outside the public system. Here's where the plot thickens if a student is allegedly an exception to the rule, the district must provide wheels during the ensuing appeal. Notwithstanding, Yost noted the district's defiance even in the face of this interim obligation. Meanwhile, kicking the can down the road, the district retorts to the court that anticipated hearings and penalties shouldn't compel immediate bus service for the neglected students from the school year’s inception.
"Simply put," "this case is far from over," Yost stated via the Ohio Attorney General's website that the court must not retreat from enforcing student transit rights. Facing the district's pushback to the legal summons, Yost’s filing shoots down their rationale as "wrong under the law." Instead, he hammers the point that "students need transportation now," casting the district's exposure to future penalties as cold comfort for students currently without a means to reach their schools.
According to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, the sticky point in the legal quagmire is that "The fact that the district may face future fines does nothing to help these students with their current ongoing harm." It's a punchy reminder that law and policy, no matter how abstractly debated in courts, bear tangible weight on young lives. The memo from Yost's office aims to translate state statutes into seats on a school bus that remains empty as the school year trudges forward and the legal wheels continue to grind.
