K-12 Enrollment / Transportation Data
2005-06 School Year

Editorial Notes About Data Collection

Data presented here was reported in the 2006-2007 edition of the School Transportation News Buyers Guide. The Buyers Guide is an directory of industry information published annually in December.

Pupil transportation data is self-reported and unaudited. It is based on data collected by the states typically for the purposte of reimbursement formulas, by which state governments reimburse school districts and school bus contractors for transportation service to public, private, parochial and charter schools.

The transportation and enrollment data reported here is supplied to the editors of School Transportation News by the pupil transportation section of state departments of education, though occasionally pupil transportation resides in some other agency of state government. Because a central pupil transportation office is nonexistent in several states, data from some state may be unavailable. An asterik ("*") indicates the data is an STN estimate based on previous years reports; these data were not supplied by state officials for the current survery.

Column 3 reports total student enrollment by state.

Column 4 shows the number of students transported daily one-way by yellow bus service at public expense. In addition to public K-12 enrollment, these data may include charter, parochial and private school enrollment as well. Moreover, students may take three or more one-way trips each day and each one way trip may be counted.

Column 5 reflects the number of vehicles reported in yellow school bus service in the state. No attempt is made to distinguish between active route buses and spare buses. Moreover, these data do not include public mass transit vehicles that provide daily or charter service to schools.

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.