Fuel Costs Prompt School Closings in Tenn.

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2006/may/01/050106147.html

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) - The high price of diesel fuel for school buses meant children in one Tennessee school system got a holiday Monday - their second in a row.

Some 3,800 youngsters got Friday and Monday off because of the action taken by Dallas Smith, superintendent of Rhea County schools in east Tennessee, to ease transportation spending.

"That kind of situation is probably the most extreme I have heard," said Mike Martin, executive director of the National Association for Pupil Transportation, based in Albany, N.Y., and a spokesman for the Washington-based School Bus Information Council.

Martin described the price of diesel, which has risen above $2.80 in the East and to more than $3 a gallon on the West Coast, as a "huge problem for not only public sector but private sector operators as well."

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[Lorax]

1. NCLB

So much for No Child Left Behind.

[Javaman]

2. This is a hint of things to come...nt

[AndyA]

3. No child left behind...everything Bush touches turns to shit!

Gas prices alone will bring the U.S. economy to a stop if something isn't done about it soon. The price of virtually everything will go up in the months to come if gas prices don't come down.

Schools closing because it's too expensive to transport children is just the beginning.

[depakid]

4. "....just the beginning."

You've got that right.

We're about to live through some very interesting times....

[Boomer]

5. Return to the one-room school house?

Oil prices are a problem when communities build a large centralized school that requires long-distance transportation to gather all its students. We may well have to return to the concept of small, decentralized schools that can be reached on foot.