TampaBay.com:
Work starts at 6 a.m., but your first-grader’s school starts at 8:05. He’ll have to stand at a crowded bus stop with kids twice his size, while you’re at the office, wondering if he’s still alive.
It’s enough to make a mom reach for her wallet.
That’s what Karina DaSilva and a growing number of parents in eastern Hillsborough County are doing this fall. Dissatisfied or excluded from regular school bus service, they’ve signed on with a new, private bus service to ferry their kids to class. It costs $35 a week, and they say it’s worth every penny.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do with Leo and his bus situation,” said DaSilva, who juggles her own nursing schedule and her husband’s military deployment to South Korea. “Then a friend of a friend told me about Kids Door to Door, and I was so thankful. You can’t put a price on your child’s safety.”
Entrepreneur Ozzie Saez said he targeted families living within 2 miles of school, most of whom don’t qualify for public school bus service under state guidelines. But several parents told him it wasn’t convenience that prompted them to sign up. It was fear.
“My son got hit in the mouth at the bus stop on the first day,” said parent Diedra Searles, describing her middle schooler’s troubles with bullying. “Another time he was halfway home and he was punched on the back of the head.”
So far, Saez is running a single bus with a handful of riders in Brandon and Valrico, with other riders due to start next week.
Saez, 37, got his start in the transporting business as a teenager, helping his parents run a bus service in Dade County. Later he started a successful company selling and rebuilding cars and motorcycles, and did a lot of traveling in support of a racing team.
Now, Saez said, his entire focus is on giving families a safe and reliable way to get their children to school.
“My mother did it out of need while going through a rough economic patch in life, and I am now (doing) it for the exact opposite reasons,” he said. “I have the time and money to do it while filling a need in Hillsborough County.”
Photo by KB35