Montgomery Co. House Delegation: Bus fee an infringement on right to free education

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." 

George Santayana, 1905

Charging Montgomery County Public School students a fee to ride public school buses is not a new idea. Back in 1996 the Montgomery County Board of Education wanted to charge students a fee to ride public school buses. No other county in the state was charging a bus fee and Montgomery County wanted to be the first, but their plan would fail. 

Here is the first of 3 newspaper articles about what happened back in 1996. 

Montgomery House Leaders Sponsor Bill to Prohibit School Bus Fees
Copyright The Washington Post Company Feb 16, 1996
[FINAL Edition]
Dan Beyers, Charles Babington. The Washington Post (pre-1997 Fulltext).
Washington, D.C.
Feb 16, 1996.
pg. D.03

The leaders of Montgomery County's House delegation introduced legislation today to stop the county school board from imposing the state's first fee for bus transportation, calling the $50-a-year charge an infringement on the right to a free education.

"Public education is for the public. It's for everybody," said Del. Kumar Barve (D), chairman of the county's House delegation, explaining why he co-sponsored the legislation.

Del. Michael R. Gordon (D-Montgomery), said the fee proposal "is totally outrageous." Gordon noted that Maryland public schools will receive about 5 percent more in state aid next year, plus extra school construction money.

"They are nickeling and diming these poor students," Gordon said. "I believe getting students to and from school safely is as important as teaching them to read and write."

The proposed prohibition would affect school systems statewide and would take effect July 1. The legislation has the support of John A. Hurson (D-Montgomery), House majority leader; Sheila Ellis Hixson (D-Montgomery), chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee; and Henry B. Heller (D-Montgomery), head of the Ways and Means education subcommittee...

...Despite sharing Cheung's concerns about state funding levels, other school board members expressed relief about having the bus fee issue taken out of their hands. Some members worried about a state education attorney's suggestion Tuesday that they lacked authority to impose the fee. And several members said they had received numerous complaints...

"This action is not a user fee -- children cannot choose not to go to school," said Sharon Cox, a regional PTA vice president from Germantown. "The burden will fall on families with young children, working parents and families with children in different schools, who cannot all be driven by their parents."

...Board member Nancy J. King (1st District), who voted for the fees, said she wasn't bothered by the state action...