The University High School Social Justice League is continuing their hard work this year for free bus passes for all students in Connecticut.
$175,000 worth of bus passes were purchased, and about approximately 250 passes have been handed out to students who completed a survey saying why they would like one and how they are going to use it. “I’m keeping spreadsheets to track the numbers, each bus card has a number, and I’m tracking who I gave it to, and then hopefully I’ll be able to go to CT Transit and be able to give data like, where they got dropped off/picked up the most, how many times they used the bus card on average,” said UHSSE principal Sean Tomany. “That’s the plan, I’ve handed 40 out to the Center for Latino Studies, 40 Buckley High School students, I’ve got 60 going to Weaver High School, eight have been handed out to New Visions, so I am interested to see what comes out of giving them to those kids.”
One of the biggest challenges has been finding places to hand out the cards. Mr. Tomany wants to know what the purpose is behind students having the pass, and then students will take a survey with questions on what they were mainly using the bus pass for, and where they are going. He is also looking for students to testify at the State Capital again, because he thinks one of the problems that they may have is a good portion of the students who had bus passes, then had them taken away have graduated. So it is harder for students who now have bus passes, who have not seen how students who didn’t have a bus pass were directly affected by it. A lot of the seniors last year who lost their bus passes, stopped playing a sport or couldn’t get to school for clubs because they didn’t have a city bus pass. So he would like student advocates to get up and tell their stories. He also said that the ultimate goal is for all of the districts to have access to free bus passes by the end of the year.
Students involved in the Social Justice League also have goals this year. “Getting the bus passes that we’ve gotten, and being able to help so many students is an amazing accomplishment,” said Nariyah Lindsay ‘25. “However, it’s not where we want it to be, obviously we want it to be free city bus passes for the entire state of Connecticut.”
City bus passes allow students to get around, Lindsay shared that many students including her rely on it to get to/from school, and that it allows them to take part in afterschool activities because it runs a lot later than the school bus does. The school bus picks students up at the end of the day, the city bus stops at bus stops multiple times a day and into the evening when practice ends for kids, so it allows them to be part of multiple extracurricular activities both before and after school which includes clubs and sports. Lindsay does both volleyball and track, and she is involved in multiple clubs, so the bus pass allows her to take the bus home after practice, and take the early bus to school so that she can be at school to be part of the clubs she is in. She would also like to expand the bus pass initiative so that they can get the data that they need and get to the place that they want to be, which is the legislation at the Capital passing free bus passes for students. She also shared that if that goes according to plan, then they can hopefully expand the Social Justice League to address other problems in the community.
The Social Justice League is also open to new members. Anyone who is interested in joining can simply stop by the STEM community center on Tuesdays during activity block and be part of one of their meetings at 7:30, or you can reach out to Mr. Tomany or Lindsay if you have any questions about joining.
