En route to commute, the cost of living far from school

By Maddie Yang,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Five minutes: about the amount of time between the first bell and the tardy bell. It is also the additional amount of time it takes a student living in Woodland to get to school versus a student living in Davis.

Junior Hyo Joon Ahn has lived in Woodland for five years. Ahn’s family decided to move from Davis to Woodland due to cheaper housing costs. Although living in Woodland saves his family some money, Ahn still sees some negatives of living far from school.

“If I have activities, like an hour after school, I have to go home and then leave right away which is very inconvenient,” Ahn said.

Junior Rui Qian Sun, who commutes to Davis High from West Sacramento, faces a similar challenge. He waits at the Yolo County library every day after school before going to swim practice so that he does not waste gas driving back and forth from Davis to Sacramento.

It takes Sun between 20 to 30 minutes every morning to get from his home to DHS. But Sun is willing to sacrifice a few minutes of his time in order to stay enrolled in the Davis Joint Unified School District.

“I get to stay with my friends and I feel like the education in Davis is better than many other places,” Sun said.

Sophomore Prajwal Singh is another student who commutes from Woodland to Davis. However, unlike Ahn, Singh does not participate in extracurricular activities taking place in Davis after school.

Looking past the challenges, Singh instead pays attention to the benefits of living outside of Davis.

“You get to meet new people and you can have more friendships with other people from different school districts,” Singh said.

Most students who commute to DHS from out of town are able to enroll in a Davis school because they were previously enrolled in the district during the time that they lived in Davis.

On the other hand, students who have never lived in Davis but want to attend a Davis school have to go through a more complicated procedure.

According to DJUSD public information officer Maria Clayton, if a student living outside of Davis wants to enroll in a Davis school, a parent must apply for an Interdistrict Transfer Agreement.

After the district approves the request, it is sent to the DJUSD Student Support Services Department for approval. Approvals are based on space availability in the requested grade level at the requested school site.