K-12 Enrollment / Transportation Data
2002-03 School Year

Editorial Note About Data Collection

Data presented here was reported in the December 2004 edition of theSchool Transportation News Buyers Guide. The Guide is an directory of industry information published annually in December. Data typically lags by one year, sometimes more. Column 2 reports the school year for which data is presented. Altogether, 36 states reported for the 2002-03 school year, with the remainder reporting data as far back as the 2000-01school year.

Transportation and enrollment data is supplied to the magazine by the pupil transportation section of the state department of education, though occasionally pupil transportation resides in some other agency of state government. There are also several states that do not have a central pupil transportation office; data from these states may not be available. Transportation data is self reported and unaudited. It is based on data collected by the states or other organizations such as reimbursement formulas by which state governments reimburse school districts and school bus contractors for transportatation service to public, private and charter schools.

Column 3 reports total student enrollment by state. When reported to STN, these data may include charter school and private school enrollment as well; in included, it is identified with "#".

Column 4 shows the number of students transported daily one-way by yellow bus service at public expense. If private school ridership is included it is identified with a single asterick "*", if pr-kindergarten data is included it is identified with a double asterick "**".

Column 5 shows the average number of yellow school buses operating, route and spare, in the fleet in the state on a given day during the school year reported. These data do not include public mass transit vehicles that provide student transportation, either regular route or charter.

States may define the cost of pupil transportation and the counting of student rides differently, therefore, caution should be exercised when seeking to compare states as the varying methodologies and differing reporting periods simply do not allow precise comparison.