Sacramento Topics

Luda Ivanyuk gives Elisa Romandia a hand massage at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center. Ivanyukis a school community worker for the San Juan School district volunteers evenings after work giving hand massages to patients at Kaiser. The 27-year-old started volunteering last summer when she though she was going to be laid off.

Hundreds of parents lined up outside the La Sierra Community Center on the first day of open enrollment for the San Juan Unified School District. After they got inside the filled out forms to get their kids into schools of their choice. Thursday, January 5, 2006. Sacramento Bee/ Jay Mather

Todd Pemberton, an Elk Grove Unified School District driver, waits at the Anatolia neighborhood in Rancho Cordova on Friday, Feb. 20, 2009 before picking up students to transport to Pleasant Grove High School in Elk Grove. As a way to close a predicted shortfall of $65.4 million over the next three years, San Juan Unified has proposed extending its no-bus-service zone for kindergartners through third-graders from three quarters of a mile to one mile from each neighborhood school. The district also may eliminate all high school bus service, increase fees and reduce bus drivers. In Sac City Unified, children have to live at least 1.5 miles from their school to qualify for a bus ride; for Roseville, Elk Grove Unified and Folsom Cordova Unifeid, children have to live 2 miles out or more. Many of these districts have already cut service, (especially to high schools) and increased fees. A comparative look: what savings occurred when other districts cut transportation service.