In an ideal world, all Chicago Public Schools would be high-quality institutions with abundant resources. Students wouldn’t have to travel far to get a decent education and access to extracurricular activities.
There has been a push to boost neighborhood schools — the right thing to do in disinvested communities — but unfortunately, the reality won’t change overnight. So many students continue to trek miles away from their homes to selective enrollment and magnet schools.
How they get there varies, as most don’t qualify for school bus rides, an amenity that has been offered less often here and elsewhere across the country in recent years. Many students use public transit. Others are chauffeured by family members. Some are also now turning to the PiggyBack Network, a carpool service started here in Chicago by a public school parent, that allows time-crunched parents to book rides for their children with other parents traveling in the same direction.
Participating drivers undergo background checks, and parents can also meet the moms and dads who will be behind the wheel on the routes they can reserve online for roughly 80 cents per mile.
PiggyBack Network helps alleviate traffic congestion while fostering a sense of community and shared responsibility, the business’ co-founder and CEO Ismael El-Amin has said.
The resulting perk? To date, the carpool service has saved CPS parents 10,000 minutes of commuting time and over 3,000 miles of driving, El-Amin, a CPS father, noted a few days ago on his LinkedIn page.
With the yellow school bus less of an alternative, the PiggyBack Network has filled a void for many.
Sabrina Beck signed up to be a PiggyBack driver to drive a Whitney Young Magnet High School student who didn’t have a way to get there. Since the retired police officer was already dropping her son off to Whitney Young each morning, she figured another passenger heading that way wouldn’t hurt.
“To have the opportunity to go (to Whitney Young) and then to miss it because you don’t have the transportation, that is so detrimental,” Beck said. “Options like this are extremely important.”
It does take a village to raise a child, as the proverb goes. PiggyBack Network, which includes members willing to be part of that village, can help ensure transportation challenges don’t run over a child’s chance to grow.
The Network helps fix a transportation problem. The bigger issue — better schools everywhere — still remains.
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