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Nicholas tightened the strap to his bucket hat and put on his neon yellow safety vest with the words “Nobody Gets Hurt” emblazoned on the back.

The 6-year-old squinted in the afternoon sun as he talked about climbing the big hill. He pointed toward his home on a ridge in the valley, more than a mile up the road from Webling Elementary.

His mom, Anne Rice, was busy helping his 4-year-old sister, Hayden, with her floppy hat and bright orange vest.

Holding hands, they set out from the Aiea school’s parking lot. Forty-five minutes later, the trio arrived at their house in Halawa Heights — an almost 500-foot elevation gain along winding roads with narrow shoulders and speeding traffic.

“I’ve asked representatives to come and walk it with me, the principal, the superintendent … You get a different impression of it than if you drive it,” Rice said. “You walk it with a 4-year-old with no curb, no gutter, no shoulder, cars coming down at 50 miles per hour on blind curves — somebody’s going to get hurt.”

Rice is familiarizing herself with the route because she plans to walk it twice daily with her kids when class resumes Monday. That’s because the state won’t be providing school bus service for this area next year.

The Webling Elementary route was one of dozens that the Hawaii Department of Education has decided to cut to plug a $17 million budget deficit for student transportation services.

In all, 2,044 active riders will have to find a new way to get to school. The Halawa Heights-Camp Smith route provided service for 65 students, making it one of the largest routes to be cut in terms of how many kids rode it daily.

“It’s just frustrating that they’re busing some high school students on this island that live just about the same distance that we live from school, but they’re not busing my kindergartner,” Rice said. “I am very willing to pay for busing and did last year.”

The Webling route was on the “safe” list in June, she said, but the department changed its mind during last-minute revisions.

The concerned mother has been contacting Hawaii Board of Education members, DOE officials and state representatives regularly since learning about the district’s decision in early July.

“They are all very nice, but just point fingers at each other,” she said. “‘We don’t have an answer, go talk to the Board of Education.’ And the Board of Education says, ‘Well, the lawmakers didn’t give us enough money.'”

Hawaii lawmakers said they gave the department less money than it requested last session because they want the district to rein in skyrocketing costs for student transportation services. Civil Beat‘s investigative series, Taken for a Ride, found that the price for school bus contracts more than doubled in recent years as bidding dropped off.

State Rep. Mark Takai, who worked to find $8 million in federal funds for the district to help cover the shortfall, has recommended parents contact the schools. In a , he said that according to the board, the schools should be providing alternatives for these students.

“Student achievement is our main priority and I will continue to fight to restore these bus routes,” he said. “Children cannot learn without being in school and some of these students will not go to school without bus service.”

The Legislature limited the department’s ability to shift funds from other sources to cover the shortfall, but student safety, distances from homes to schools, cost effectiveness and other factors when choosing what routes to cut.

Assistant Superintendent Randy Moore, who has since retired, told the board at its June 19 meeting that safety is relative. “I know nobody at this table wants to cut one single route, but the challenge is we’re $17 million short,” he said.

Rice said she would never let her kids walk the route to school alone for fear of a passing truck side-swiping them, not to mention having to pass by a registered sex offender’s house.

“If I am unable to walk with them up and down this hill and there is no bus my children will not be able to attend school at all due to life-threatening conditions,” she said. “I would like to see some sort of busing for the kids that live at the extremes — at the extremes of danger and distance, and think about age.”

The Department of Education, the Webling principal, Board Chair Don Horner and state Rep. Heather Giugni, whose district covers Aiea, could not be reached for comment for this story despite leaving multiple messages.

Webling’s says the department is looking at city bus availability, sidewalks and “least amount of discomfort to and from schools.” Questions were deferred to the DOE’s .

Honolulu officials that they will boost city bus service starting Monday to lessen the impact of the state’s school bus cuts. The plan involves increasing the frequency of existing bus service on four routes that serve Kapolei, Ewa Beach, Pacific Palisades and Pearl City.

Rice said even if Honolulu’s ramped-up service included Halawa Heights, she wouldn’t put her two young children on a city bus alone.

Eliminating the school bus service has had a trickle-down effect on the Rice family. Rice had planned to return to her engineering career when school starts. Now the family will rely on her husband’s income while she takes the kids to and from class each day.

Rice is not hopeful that the district will change its mind and put the Webling bus back in service before school resumes. The district on June 30 had finalized a list of 103 bus routes to be eliminated, but in a surprise move four days later found a way to save 29 more from the chopping block.

“My impression is this is a done deal,” she said, adding that other bus routes that were cut have steeper ascents and narrower roads. “But I’m going to be in really good shape going up and down this hill.”

For now, the day is warm and the trades have died off, making it seem even hotter for Rice and her two kids.

During a water break halfway up the hill between the parking lot and their house, her daughter Hayden talked about how there are more stairs to climb at home. Nick, who will be entering second grade, said it’s important to have a hand to hold when walking the route.

“It’s really hard,” he said.