EVERY DAY SUELONNEE TINGLE AND HER BROTHER KENNETH USE THE DAYTON RTA TO GET TO PUBLIC SCHOOL.

WITH NO OPTION TO RIDE A YELLOW SCHOOL BUS, CITY TRANSIT IS IT.

SOUNDBITE (English) Suelonne Tingle, high school student:

"This year, so far it's been very hard to decide what time to get on the bus because you really have to be like looking at their app and the apps like the only way you can tell like when the bus is going to come.”

SOUNDBITE (English) Suelonne Tingle, high school student:

“Every year has been a little different mostly because you know they've been battling whether we should have them or not.”

OHIO REQUIRES PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICTS, IN MANY CASES, TO TRANSPORT PRIVATE SCHOOL STUDENTS TO THEIR RESPECTIVE BUILDINGS, SOMETIMES LEAVING PUBLIC SCHOOL KIDS TO FIND THEIR OWN WAY.

SOUNDBITE (English) Ronnee Tingle, mother of Dayton Public School students:

“To know that they are having to take those public dollars to funnel into other entities is not a fair situation, and I don't think that it's right.”

THIS, ALONGSIDE A NATIONAL BUS DRIVER SHORTAGE, HAS STRETCHED RESOURCES SO THIN THAT SOME DISTRICTS HAVE CANCELED BUS TRANSPORTATION FOR THOUSANDS OF HIGH SCHOOLERS AND ADVISED FAMILIES TO USE PUBLIC TRANSIT FOR THEIR STUDENTS.

SOUNDBITE (English) Jeff Wensing, Ohio Education Association President:

"I don't care if you're in rural, urban, suburban, there's a bus driver shortage, just plain and simple."

SOUNDBITE (English) David Lawrence, Dayton Public Schools Superintendent:

"If we didn't have to transport charter school and parochial students, we could transfer all of our students almost door-to-door from K through 12.”

SCHOOL CHOICE ADVOCATES NOTE THE STATE HELPS FUND THE COSTS OF TRANSPORTING PRIVATE SCHOOL STUDENTS, BUT THE DISTRICTS ARGUE WHAT THEY GET IS NOT ENOUGH.