Get on the bus

I live in a different district than the one I teach and today it was their first day of school. I left at 6:30 today and they are lined up at the bus stop. Last night on the news I heard them say that the longest an elementary student rides the bus is 75 minutes and their goal is 60 minutes, it blows my mind that 60 minutes is even okay. In this town they drive the kids all over the place so that all schools are equal. But in my opinion keeping a kiddo on the bus for 75 minutes is absurd. I wouldn't even try 75 minutes to work let alone an hour. I bet the little ones are exhausted after such a long day and then I long bus ride. And then there's the whole teacher aspect of it too. As a teacher I know that some parents are not able to get to school. Especially if their child's school and 75 minutes away. So that parent contact that is important is taken away. I'm not sure if this is a common thing but where I grew up at it definitely wasn't. It really leaves me with the question how many parents actually want that for their child why not keep them in their neighborhood and get the parents involved that's far more important then how many ethnicities are in each school.