Pasco to cut back on busing for magnet, choice schools
Tampa Bay Times | Jeffrey S. Solochek | April 15, 2026
The first students started arriving outside Sanders Memorial Elementary School in Land O’ Lakes nearly an hour before the sun rose Wednesday.
They came to catch a bus to Angeline Academy of Innovation, a magnet middle-high school about 13 miles away. Their parents had to get to work, so the kids waited, talking softly, scrolling phones and listening to headphones while waiting for their ride.
It’s a ride, many said, that offered their only chance to take advantage of Pasco County’s school choice options. Without it, they worried they might have to switch schools.
That’s no idle concern. The district recently announced plans to throttle back busing for magnets and gifted centers, currently used by nearly 2,000 students across Pasco, cutting the number of seats available by close to a third by shifting up to 17 buses back to neighborhood routes.
A school bus departs from a bus hub at Sanders Elementary School while providing district transportation to Angeline Academy of Innovation on Wednesday in Land O’ Lakes.
The move has to happen, superintendent John Legg said, because the district continues to fall short in its obligation to provide on-time transportation to neighborhood schools.
Emails regularly pour in from parents complaining that their children are routinely late for classes and getting home, he said. Efforts to improve the situation, including streamlined bus routes and incentives for drivers, have made a dent — the district has seen its driver vacancies drop from 60 in August to 24 now — but “we still have a gap that we need to close,” Legg said.
“We have to prioritize that first and then go to our voluntary routes,” he added.
Since creating the bus hub system about eight years ago, the district has made clear that families have no guarantee of transportation for their children who attend magnets and gifted centers, which have grown in number.
Pasco opened its first magnet school in 2014. This year, it had nearly 8,500 students apply in the January window for its school choice programs.
Over time, parents have come to expect the bus service will be there for everyone.
That was noted by school board members, who during their Tuesday meeting ripped into the administration’s implementation of the change.
They lamented that the announcement of the bus lottery, which takes place this week, came long after the district’s primary choice window and acceptance period. Many families made decisions weeks ago based on an understanding that transportation would be offered, and this shift could disrupt children’s education, chairperson Colleen Beaudoin said.
Beaudoin raised concerns that families who could not otherwise get their kids to school would effectively lose the range of choices the district provides. She pointed specifically to access for magnet schools without attendance zones such as Angeline Academy, which some students said is “in the middle of nowhere.”
“How many students will benefit from these changes and how many will bear the burden?” Beaudoin asked, calling for more research on the various effects the change might generate.
Her views, echoed by several of her colleagues, highlighted an issue that education researchers have identified as a key factor in the school choice movement.
Across the nation, as in Pasco, school district transportation budgets are limited. They often place the responsibility on parents to get their children to schools they aren’t zoned to attend, but that can be a barrier to families because of work schedules, financial situations or other realities in their lives.
It can lead to imbalances in who can take advantage of the broadening education landscape.
“I really am concerned about how this has been rolled out and the impact it will have,” board member Megan Harding said.
Board member Jessica Wright, whose children have used the bus hub system, said the change will impact families’ daily lives in a stressful way. Though altering the model might be justifiable financially, Wright said, the timing is all wrong.
Sitting in her car in the Sanders parking lot, parent Claudett Guzman said she feels the pressure. Her eighth-grade son uses the bus hub to travel to and from Angeline Academy, allowing her to make sure her two younger children get to their elementary school on time.
“It’s horrible,” Guzman said of the district’s plan. “It will affect who is going to which school.”
Board members ultimately did not demand that Legg revamp the transportation plan. They did, however, call for detailed reports about its results, including the number of families that change their children’s school choices and whether buses actually make it to neighborhood schools in a more timely manner.
Legg pledged to follow through, adding that his team will regularly review the performance and look at ridership with an eye toward shrinking the bus hub waiting list as much as possible.
“Hopefully, there will be no waiting list,” Legg said. “We won’t know until folks sign up.”
