Opinion by John Butz

Paying for transportation to Kirkwood classes is turning out difficult for high school students. I pay 10 dollars each day to drive to Kirkwood, back to Mount Vernon and then back home. Over all that ends up being 1,800 dollars in one year. To me that’s unrealistic for a high school student.

The only money I can earn is during the summer and on the weekend during the school year, due to the amount of the sports and extracurricular activities I participate in after school. I am not the only other person with this problem. On average, four kids from Mount Vernon go to the Kirkwood Regional Center in Hiawatha. For me it’s a 22 minute drive there each morning and a 28 minute drive back to Mount Vernon. After practice I have to drive another 12 minutes to just get home for the night. I spend over an hour every day in my truck just driving to go to or come back from school. My truck gets 12 to 14 miles to the gallon. I know it’s not the best but it’s the only vehicle I can use in my household day to day.

If the school could provide a bus or car to transport all the kids who go to Kirkwood that would be great, but the problem is almost every Kirkwood class either starts or ends at a different time. So the idea of bussing kid would not be the greatest idea because we don’t have enough people to go to Kirkwood every day from our school or even to combine with Lisbon.

A practical solution to the problem would be for the school to subsidize the payments of gas to help make education more affordable. They don’t have to pay for all of it, but maybe a certain amount per mile. Theoretically they could give a card for gas money based on how far you drive and what you get on gas milage for your vehicle. Spending over 1,500 dollars a year to get education based on gas is ridiculous, considering how much people have to travel just to go there and come back.

Chugging Money