Boys & Girls Clubs See Decline After Transportation Cut

The Boys & Girls Club adjacent to the South Cobb Recreation Center saw a huge decline in participants following the first day of school Monday, which is also the first day in 12 years that the Cobb County School District did not provide transportation to the clubs.

"Usually, we would be totally full, overflowing," said Grant Boys & Girls Club Director N'Keshia Brundidge on Monday.

She said the club usually would have 180 or more students, but on Monday only about 80 students were able to participate in the afterschool program.

Brundidge said she fears "that we're going to miss out on some children who can't afford bus service...We help them academically. We help them socially. We help them go to college. This is a safe place for kids to be."

In June, CCSD cut transportation to South Cobb’s two Boys & Girls Club locations on Floyd Road and adjacent to the South Cobb Recreation Center. The district was able to take the children to the clubs on buses provided for the No Child Left Behind choice program. Since the program was eliminated, so were those driver positions.

“We don’t want to put parents in a difficult situation, but with the deficits we were facing, a difficult decision had to be made,” Chris Ragsdale, CCSD deputy superintendent of operations.

However, parents and workers at the Grant Boys & Girls Club adjacent to the South Cobb Rec Center said they already see changes after the first day of school.

The clubs, which provide afterschool care for $35 a year per student, are offering transportation from South Cobb schools for $60 a quarter.

However, that cost is just too high for many parents who may be working two or three jobs, like one mother who wished to remain unnamed because she works as a paraprofessional for Cobb County Schools and has two other jobs.

She has two daughters who also attend Cobb schools.

The mother said she was late for her second job because she had to wait at home for her daughters to get off their buses, which were late.

She is concerned that without children participating in the afterschool programs, crime will increase in the South Cobb area.

"It's going to have a lot more kids on the streets and crimes," she said. "Parents can't get off from work and get them. They're going to break into houses...Kids are not getting the good social network when they're just sitting at home. They're going to start hanging out with the wrong crowd."

Her 11-year-old daughter, Jalicia Bass, will miss her friends who won't be there to play with her at  the Grant Boys & Girls Club.

"I feel sad," she told South Cobb Patch.