by Jamie Roos, reporter

The Jim Thorpe High School will no longer be supplying a fan bus for this year’s away football games due to the administrative team having concerns about the safety and well being of the district’s students.

 “We came to the conclusion that it would be best not to transport them to and leave them for hours at another school without proper supervision.” said Mrs. Mundinger, the Transportation Supervisor of the Jim Thorpe Area School District.  “While I thought it was a great opportunity for the students to be able to get  a ride to the games to show their support for our teams, I also had a lot of concerns about their safety.”

 Jim Thorpe Area High School will no longer be supplying a fan bus for away football games. This is causing students to drive to these out-of-the-way schools just to support the Red Swarm. Some rumors have been going around about why there is no fan bus. One of those rumors is that some kids did not behave properly on the bus ride either to or from the game. This may or may not be the case.

 When asking Junior, Armando Angel, his response was: “I never go to the games anyway.” Some people don’t even bother going to the away games since there are still a lot of home games to cheer on The Olympians.

 A lot of students are not very happy about this because most of them don’t want to spend their own money on gas to go to other schools. Traveling can also be dangerous for students. Many are trying to keep teens off the road, especially at night, and getting rid of the fan bus isn’t solving that.

 “Now I can’t go to football games,” said Angellica Stauffer, a Jim Thorpe Senior. She seemed very annoyed when being asked about this situation, suggesting that she was very unhappy about not being able to go to the away games.

If the school brought the busses back, it would save a lot of people time and money. It is, however, expensive to have one or two fan busses, but each student pays $2 for a ticket, anyway. A student that drives to every away game is most likely going to spend more money per week than a school district having to run two busses and pay for a bus driver.

 Emily Sailer, a Senior at Jim Thorpe said, “I think if the schools want to raise more money, a fan bus would help more kids come to spend money at the games.” Her statement was true. Jim Thorpe doesn’t have a fan bus, so that means no one is paying for the ride and not as many kids are paying for other schools’ games.

The fan bus may limit the chances of crashes, it wouldn’t cost as much money, and students would probably feel safer. The reason we don’t have a fan bus is because they are unsupervised. The school does not feel safe with having their students at another area’s school without the supervision of the school, while still technically being held accountable for the students’ actions. The sad fact is, Jim Thorpe most likely won’t bring back the fun bus for the away football games.