Families who send their children to four private schools in the Lakota district will keep their bus rides.

Lakota Local Schools confirmed Wednesday, Sept. 2, that it has reinstated transportation for students at Cincinnati Christian Schools, Sacred Heart, Montessori Academy and Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy (CHCA) for the 2026-27 school year. The reversal comes just weeks before classes resume, ending a summer-long dispute that WCPO first reported had pushed some parents to consider changing jobs.

The Lakota school board voted 4-1 this summer to declare transportation to non-public schools impractical, a move that would have ended bus service for the new school year. Board member Benjamin Nguyen cast the lone dissenting vote.

Parents challenged the decision and entered mediation with the district. Ray Kochis, superintendent of Cincinnati Christian Schools, represented families during those sessions.

Kochis said the district initially concluded too few students had requested rides to justify the routes. But the low numbers, he said, traced back to a registration change families never saw coming. Lakota had switched from paper forms distributed through schools to an online application. Many parents did not learn about the new process until after the June 1 deadline.

At Cincinnati Christian Schools, the notification email went to an elementary school principal who had not worked there for five years, according to Kochis. He said he does not know whether that contact information has been updated.

As mediation continued, more families signed up once they learned about the online system. The district said in a statement that ridership had increased, though Kochis attributed the jump to families finally discovering the registration process rather than new demand.

Kochis said the final mediation session ended on a Friday, and by the following Monday he had word that Lakota agreed to transport the students.

Kochis said a few parents had been considering changing jobs because their schedules did not allow them to drive children to and from school without bus service.

Nguyen, who took the unusual step of speaking during public comment as a sitting board member, criticized the timeline of the original vote.

"Families should never lose their rights because the district failed to provide a timely notice," Nguyen said.

He said the board could have acted by early June, giving families the full summer to plan. Instead, the July decision left parents roughly two weeks before the school year to scramble.

The district noted that not all private schools are eligible for transportation, as was the case before the dispute. Kochis cautioned that families should not assume service will automatically continue. Lakota evaluates private school transportation eligibility each year, with the next determination expected ahead of the 2027-28 school year.