A group of parents urged Denton school board members to reconsider the district’s recent decision to stop transporting their children to and from Nelson Elementary School.

About 15 parents at Tuesday’s board meeting said they were concerned about safety and the distance — up to 1.9 miles — their children would have to walk to school from their homes in the Wheeler Ridge and Braewood at Oakmont neighborhoods.

Until this summer, the district offered temporary transportation to students in the two neighborhoods — an area the district considers a no-busing zone because students live within two miles of Nelson Elementary — because of a lack of pedestrian access to the campus.

District officials said they’ve worked with the city of Denton and recently opened pedestrian access walkways to students living in the two neighborhoods, and a supervised crosswalk.

Julie Martin, a mother of two students who attend Nelson Elementary, said parents never received a fair opportunity to voice their concerns on the transportation decision. Parents received a letter in July after the district’s decision to discontinue bus transportation to Wheeler Ridge and Braewood at Oakmont residents.

Martin said several parents have attempted to call the transportation department and assistant superintendent to express their dismay, but their efforts have led to them being transferred countless times and then eventually becoming lost in the “black hole.”

“We don’t really know what to do, and we’ve just been trying to figure out how to get help,” she told board members Tuesday.

A majority of the parents agreed that bus transportation should be provided or safety measures needed to be taken in the area, Martin said. On Tuesday, more than 150 fliers were distributed to parents to garner support to revoke the district’s decision, and parents say a petition in support of their efforts has begun to circulate.

“Our districts are only as good as what we put into them,” Martin said. “As parents with concern for our children’s safety, we should not be subjected to only hearing, ‘We just don’t have the funding.’”

Martin said that if funding is the issue, parents have no problem raising the necessary money to restore bus transportation for their children. She said they’re willing to do whatever it takes.

The Denton Student Code of Conduct booklet states that the district provides bus transportation to schoolchildren living in district boundaries two miles or more from their schools, and to students with special needs.

Board members, who had touched on the transportation topic during a discussion of educational priorities they’re compiling to present to state legislators next month, addressed the parents who spoke in open forum.

Gene Holloway, the district’s transportation director, said state funding for transportation has remained the same since 1985.

Although districts statewide have grown and costs for buses and fuel have increased, state funding has not, he said, leaving districts to pick up a bulk of the transportation bill.

School officials said there’s simply no funding.

In the 2003-04 school year, the district adopted the 2-mile radius for transportation. The district only receives state funding for students outside the 2-mile radius.

Prior to 2003-04, Denton’s radius was 1 1/2 miles.

“The last thing we want to tell a family is no,” Holloway said. “But we have a limit to our ability to serve this community. In this case, it’s going to take the community … to meet the needs of our students.”

The school board members agreed.

“The state only funds about 12 cents of our transportation dollar, and the rest comes from the budget we have to run the schools, turn the lights on and pay the teachers and provide instructors for special programs,” said trustee Glenna Harris. “It sucks.”

Parents such as Karolyn De La Portilla, who lives in the Wheeler Ridge neighborhood, said she understands the district’s two-mile rule.

She said if the district is not willing to reverse its decision for Wheeler Ridge and Braewood at Oakmont, she’s curious as to what can be done to change the speed limit around the school.

The speed limit in the area is 50 mph, and there is no school zone speed limit.

“Nelson is set back and so the speed limit is 50 mph, which is great if you don’t leave the campus, but if you leave the campus, the city has a sidewalk with gravel pathways and they are not that far from the street, which is 50 mph,” De La Portilla told trustees Tuesday. “Driving my son home today, I saw lots of little kids walking on the path, walking on the grass, getting very close to the cars.

“So I would like to urge the board to help us either get buses back, or if that is not possible, to be able to change the speed limit to make it safer for our children to walk home.”

Holloway said that walkways on the east side of Teasley Lane going north were available to the Robinson Road intersection.

The walkway is paved from the school and north on Teasley Lane to Lake Wood Estates; it is a grassy and gravel path to the Teasley-Robinson intersection.

Holloway said the district is working with the city to add sidewalks in the area. A traffic light is also planned for Teasley and Robinson, he said.

Martina Larry, another parent, invited board members for breakfast at her home and then to take the 1.9-mile walk from her home in Braewood at Oakmont to Nelson Elementary to determine “if this is really beneficial for our children’s education.”

She said it’s disheartening that her child lives closer than the 2-mile limit and has to walk, while children across the street who qualify for bus transportation have a ride to school.

“I understand that it’s a two-mile limit, but if within that radius you have children that are needing transportation that are close to the bus stop — one block — why not fill that bus up?” Larry said.

BRITNEY TABOR can be reached at 940-566-6876. Her e-mail address is btabor@dentonrc.com.