KYLE, Texas — On Dacy Lane in Kyle, the speed limit is 45 mph, but neighbors say cars and trucks speed down the road daily.
It's also the same road that Samantha Kroeker’s 4-year-old and 6-year-old children will now have to walk a mile on uphill to get to school.
“It gives me chills, literally like it scares me,” Kroeker said.
Hays CISD recently cut their bus stop because according to the Texas Education Agency’s rules, it is no longer deemed hazardous, thanks to a new sidewalk added there.
The TEA classifies a road as being considered hazardous if there is no sidewalk, or if students have to cross a freeway, underpass, bridge or high traffic area. But Kroeker says those guidelines are too broad.
“Do they have people that actually come out here and look at the two miles?” Kroeker said. “Do they have people that walk the two miles? Do they take into account the seasons, the temperature? Or if it's uphill, if it's downhill, if it's, you know, the speed limit, is it along a busy road?”
Kroeker started a petition to push the TEA to re-evaluate its policies, which is something the school district says it's also on board with.
“We know it’s frustrating, we know that it’s something we don’t agree with either, but it’s just something that the realities of the way transportation is funded,” said Tim Savoy, Chief Communications Officer for Hays CISD. "Maybe it's time to take a look at this transportation allotment formula for school districts."
The state funds bus stops for all students living farther than two miles away from the school, or within two miles if they live on a hazardous route. But because the school district is in a high-growth area and has a lot of new development, Savoy says more and more bus stops are being cut.
“Because of the addition of the sidewalks, and the stoplights, those areas no longer meet what the state considers to be hazardous routes, so we lose funding for that,” Savoy said.
Only 10% of the state funding given for bus stops can go toward stops along hazardous routes under the two-mile radius, so Savoy says the district ends up spending a lot of their own budget on funding stops in these TEA-deemed “hazardous routes”.
Savoy reiterated that if the district added stops in every place where students live, it would largely impact their budget.
“We wouldn’t be able to make an exception for one place without making an exception for all of the places through the years and at that point, that would break the budget,” Savoy said.
The district recommends that parents whose student’s bus stop got cut this year, to find family members or other groups of parents who can help walk their kids to school.
But as someone who doesn't have any family in the area, and as a protective mother, that concerns Kroeker.
“I’d be worried sick. Who knows if my kid’s going to get hit?” Kroeker said. “Honestly, if you’re a parent and they aren’t super close to you, you’re not really going to trust anybody.”
Kroeker also takes care of two other young infants of her own and helps take care of her friend’s three young kids, and with only a few days left until school starts, she’s left in a difficult position.
“I sit here and I’m like, 'how am I going to do this?'” Kroeker said.
The petition currently has more than 100 signatures.