A 100-Mile Journey

By CHRISTIAN MONTERROSA | Reporter

After an increase to the bus fare at Palisades Charter High School left students scrambling to find new ways to get to school, many settled on public transportation and carpooling.

But for Edward Sly, 17, his route remained unchanged, as he continues to embark on a 100-mile, six-bus and two-train journey on a daily basis from Long Beach.

Taking a closer look at his route, the Palisadian-Post documented the journey of Sly in a new mini-documentary video as part of “The Traveling Class”—a series focused on finding students who travel great distances to get to school.

The video not only shows for the first time a world outside of Palisadian school buses, but highlights a student who is believed to travel the farthest, according to school data and an investigation by the Post published in May.

“I really like the school I go to,” Sly said in the video interview when asked to explain why he takes on such a long commute. “It’s for a better education, that’s what it’s really for.”

Sly is taking full advantage of the opportunities provided by Pali High and has enrolled in AP literature, honors government and honors marine biology. He is involved with multiple clubs and spends much of his time singing in the choir and at church events.

For Sly, leaving the district at such a late stage in his educational career would be detrimental. He has been attending Palisadian schools since elementary grades and feels it would be a greater challenge to start over somewhere closer to home.

“There was a concern of taking this many buses,” he said. “I’m pretty sure [my parents] thought that my grades would probably be much better than they are right now if I went to a closer school, which I agree, but I feel like the environment and the setup I already have at Pali, I can’t replace that.”

With teachers still expecting Sly to complete the same workload as local students, he is maintaining a 3.0 GPA and is thinking about his collegiate future.