North Dakota bases school transportation payments on district travel measures

The superintendent calculates each district’s transportation units using eligible bus miles and runs, district area, school buildings, and reimbursed family transportation miles. The formula covers eligible districts using contract or district-operated school buses, and districts with students riding commercial buses to school within a city. Districts must certify that they follow state rules for school buses and drivers to qualify. Payments depend on legislative funding. If a district’s eligible bus miles and runs stay the same or increase, its payment cannot be less than the prior year’s payment. The superintendent calculates each district’s units each year using the latest available miles and runs.

The superintendent counts eligible trips to school, approved special education programs, and career and technical education programs when calculating transportation units. Special education and career and technical education trips may count even when students live outside the city where the school is located. Trips to career and technical education programs in another district must be part of a state-approved cooperative arrangement. For reimbursed family trips to special education, the student must have a disability and an education plan requiring attendance outside the home district. An adult family member may be reimbursed for no more than two round trips per day. Trips for extracurricular activities do not count. Trips for open enrollment students, or students covered by a written agreement waiving tuition, do not count. The superintendent uses the latest available miles and runs in each yearly calculation.

The superintendent adjusts transportation units for districts that enroll students from a district that closes. The adjustment applies to districts statewide that enroll students who attended the closed district. The superintendent calculates what the closed district would have qualified for in its final year and shares those units among enrolling districts based on the number of former students each enrolls. The adjustment applies in the first year after closure. Later calculations use the enrolling districts’ reported transportation units.