This is not only about kids that have to wait for the bus, I don’t know about other cities, but in Rochester the busing boundaries are as follows “Non-busing boundaries are 1.25 miles for elementary students, 1.5 miles for middle school students and 2 miles for high school students.” I don’t know about other parents but I sure wouldn’t want my elementary age girls walking 1.5 miles to school in -35 to -45 degree windchills…. Heck I wouldn’t even want them walking the 10 blocks from our house to school, we are lucky and our work schedules allow for us to drop them off and pick them up. I don’t believe that the districts deliberately close school to inconvenience parents.