Since the passage of the Fair Bus Bill in 1965, Ohio's public school districts have been required to provide bus transportation or cover transportation costs for K-8 students living within their districts, even if they're not enrolled in the public school system.
As districts scale back operations amid financial strain, some are questioning whether public schools should still shoulder that responsibility. Others believe school districts may not be doing enough to fulfill their legal obligation.
Cincinnati Public Schools provides some form of transportation to around 16,000 students living a mile or more from the school they attend. Nearly 20% of those students attend a private or charter school.
Board of Education member Eve Bolton says in total, the district spends around $50 million on transportation each year. Recently, the it has taken steps to cut back on transportation expenses, opting to give 7th and 8th-graders Metro bus passes rather than contracting with a school bus company.
"On Metro, transporting a 7th and 8th grader is about $350, but transporting a 7th and 8th grader on a yellow bus is more than $3,000 a piece," Bolton tells WVXU.
Bolton argues that one of the many reasons for the switch to city buses is financial strain from the state's mandate to transport non-district students to other schools.
Data from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (ODEW) shows that during the 2024-2025 school year, more than 3,000 CPS students rode a yellow bus to school, while more than 10,000 took a city bus using a pass provided by the district.
That same year, the district provided some form of transportation to more than 3,000 students enrolled in a private or charter school. Most of those students rode a yellow bus or Metro bus, but more than 800 were sent a direct payment from the district instead of receiving transportation.
The district deemed it impractical to transport those 800 students because their schools were too far away, or the cost of providing busing for them would be too much for the district to handle.
A resolution approved by the Board of Education in May shows that during the 2025-2026 school year, 979 non-district students were declared impractical to transport. Those students' families were each sent payments of between $607 and $1,214.
Cost-saving solutions like issuing payments rather than providing transportation have been heavily scrutinized.
In 2024, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court against Columbus City Schools. Yost claimed the district was making a calculated decision to break the law by declaring around 1,380 non-district students impractical for transportation.
The court dismissed Yost's complaint in May, 2026, saying it lacked legal standing.
Though the lawsuit was dismissed, Aaron Churchill, Ohio research director for the conservative think-tank the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, says it highlights an issue for private and charter school families who are entitled to the same transportation options offered to public school students.
Churchill argues that payments instead of transportation still leave many students without a consistent way to get to school on time, especially if they come from low-income families.
"Maybe (they) don't have a car. What does $600 do? How does that help you? You can't buy a car on $600. You can't lease a car," he tells WVXU.
Churchill would like to see public schools put most of these students on buses and only send payments to private and charter school families in extreme circumstances where district-provided transportation is truly impractical.
"This is not overburdensome because we've been doing it for 50 years," Churchill says. "This is something that should be a basic expectation of local government, which a school district is, to provide the public service to the students in their communities so that they can get to school."
Bolton says that's easier said than done for Ohio's large urban districts. Cincinnati Public Schools has more than 60 buildings, and if the district had to transport every private and charter school student by bus, it would need to send buses to dozens of additional schools throughout the city.
As things stand now, Bolton claims Ohio's school transportation laws favor non-public students, and she'd like to see lawmakers invest more money into public education so every student can have a safe way to get to school each day.
"The solution would be not to discriminate against anybody and have everyone have about the same amount of protection and opportunity for transportation," Bolton says.
Possible solutions may be on the way soon. In 2025, ODEW assembled a bipartisan Student Transportation Workgroup to address transportation challenges. That work group is supposed to send its findings and recommendations to Gov. Mike DeWine and the General Assembly by June 30.
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