That's Christian of them

[Gob]

A pupil in Telford has been told that he cannot ride a council-run bus to school along with his classmates because ‘he’s not Catholic’, it has been reported. The bus serves the Holy Trinity Academy in Priorslee, which was opened in 2015 jointly by the local Roman Catholic and Anglican dioceses, and despite the bus being operated by Telford and Wrekin Council, it is not open to children at the school who are either not religious or belong to a minority religion. The British Humanist Association (BHA) has once again called on the exemptions in the Equality Act 2010 allowing for discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief in the provision of school transport to be scrapped.

Speaking about the situation, the father of the boy involved stated that the ‘the bus stops two minutes from the front door’, ‘but he was told that because he’s not Catholic, even though he goes to the school, he can’t use it’. A spokesperson for Telford and Wrekin Council said ‘Transport assistance is offered to pupils who are baptised Catholics and pupils whose families are faithful and regular worshippers in a Church of England Parish Church or other Christian affiliated churches if they live over the three-mile distance criteria for secondary aged pupils.’

Remarkably, discrimination of this kind is entirely legal, as the provision of school transport by local authorities is exempted from equalities legislation. The BHA has previously raised concerns about this exemption with the Department for Education, stating in their response to a 2014 consultation on the issue that ‘Providing one group of parents extra choice over others is unfair, and the nature of the discretionary spending likely causes religious and ethnic segregation’.

The BHA’s Faith Schools Campaigner Jay Harman said, ‘Discretionary transport for children attending “faith” schools is unfair, discriminatory, and also completely unnecessary. Religious families are already given greater choice of schools than non-religious families as a result of the religious discrimination permitted in school admissions, and this is only exacerbated by the provision of free transport for the religious. On top of that, all the evidence tells us that very few parents actually send their children to a “faith” school for reasons of religion, so this kind of provision is entirely unnecessary too.

‘Ultimately, of course, we do not think it is appropriate for any state body to provide funding for a service which incentivises parents to avoid inclusive and integrated schools in favour of discriminatory and divisive schools. This will only serve to entrench religious segregation in our education system, and we would encourage any council providing free transport to do so in a fair and non-discriminatory way.’

[Scooter]

That's fucked.

[RayThom]

Man's inhumanity to man.

Religion... it's going to kill us all.

[Big RR]

This is serious? For the life of me, I cannot think of one reason why the council should fund a bus service like this, even if it is permissible under the law.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Of course, we all agree that councils should only provide bus services to schools that deny the existence of God. That's fair.

In this case, it is ridiculous that the child can attend the school yet not ride the bus. Either the religious qualification should apply to school attendance as well - or the kid should be allowed on the bus that takes him to the school that accepts him as a pupil. Anything less is lunacy

[Big RR]

Meade--I'll leave the defense of any law/policy for provision of publicly funded transport to only schools that deny the existence of god to someone who actually said that and will agree with you--if a student can attend the school, I cannot see any reason why (s)he should not be able to ride the bus. Again, I can see no reason why any student should be excluded.

[Scooter]

Just a guess - they probably get per pupil funding from the government for the school, whereas bus funding probably works differently, and adding additional children/stops to the bus route adds to costs without attracting additional funding.

[Big RR]

That could be the case Scooter (although the post does not say this at all, and indicates the bus is operated by the council), but IMHO if they are receiving money from/for the nonreligious students, it would make sense not to discriminate against them. Indeed, perhaps the council should blend the routes of several schools to make it more efficient and prevent this sort of discrimination from continuing.

[Scooter]

In Ontario we had a situation for decades when coterminous public and Catholic school boards ran separate bus systems travelling over much the same routes, with half-empty buses of one board riding right by students of the other board. Finally the provincial government forced them through funding cuts to merge their bus systems to serve both boards.

[Big RR]

When my children were in kindergarten I chose to have them attend a private school offering all day classes; under the laws of my state the town/state was required to either transport my children or to pay me the statutory amount paid per pupil transported to the local public school. Some of the children road the public school bus and were dropped off at the school, others (like mine) received the statutory amount and had to arrange for transport on their own. So far as I know, there were few complaints (if any).

[oldr_n_wsr]

I went to Catholic school and the local public school district that we were in had to transport us by law.
The Catholic school was in a different school district (Corpus Christi in Mineola) than us and it was the school district (East Williston)we lived in which provided the bus service.
Once in a while there was "conflict" as the holidays of the two districts (and of public versus Catholic) didn't always match up.
I don't think there was a "statutory amount" given if the bus couldn't pick us up.

[Big RR]

I think NJ instituted the "statutory amount" to cover situations where it just wasn't economically feasible to transport a small number of kids to a private or parochial school. Did you have to ride the bus with--gasp--non-catholics?

[oldr_n_wsr]

I think NJ instituted the "statutory amount" to cover situations where it just wasn't economically feasible to transport a small number of kids to a private or parochial school. Did you have to ride the bus with--gasp--non-catholics?

I don't know if any on the bus were non-catholics. We all went to the catholic school.
I remember one of my friends at the time, tell me he and his family didn't go to church every sunday. That was a shock to me and the sheltered life I led.

[datsunaholic]

Wow.

I'd never heard of private school kids being transported by public school buses. Here in Seattle, if you went to a private school, it was usually up to your parents to arrange transport. It was either your parents drove you, you walked, or your parents arranged a carpool. Almost no private schools had school buses below the High School level (9-12 here, private schools don't have middle school) and very few of the High Schools had routes. If you went to public school, that was a different story- you were forced to ride a bus to whatever part of town was the most racially dissimilar to your neighborhood (enforced integration).

I never saw the inside of a school bus until I was a freshman in High School. That was only because I was in choir and our teacher drove is to various concert venues. My high school had 2 normal buses that seldom ran but were basically only used to transport the football team, as well as a couple van-based buses that were used for single-class field trips. I got to high school via public transit, and my folks had to buy the bus pass at full rate.

As far as I know, that's pretty much still the way it is. The public schools finally dropped forced busing (forced integration) and went back to zone assignment, but private schools still provide no transportation for their students.

[rubato]

So 'Catholic-school' children are taken to school by busses paid for by general taxes but non-Catholic children cannot ride the same busses to the same schools?


That's fucked up.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

In this case, it is ridiculous that the child can attend the school yet not ride the bus. Either the religious qualification should apply to school attendance as well - or the kid should be allowed on the bus that takes him to the school that accepts him as a pupil. Anything less is lunacy

Well caught up, rubato.