Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, told the Board of Education during its Tuesday, April 21, meeting the district administration would like to launch a transportation survey.

The first draft of the survey was presented to the school board during the meeting, and by the end of the meeting, Dr Erardi said he would draft another version of the survey, reflecting the board’s responses from the meeting.

“This we believe will offer us a decent number of parent responses,” said Dr Erardi, “and at least give us a baseline of what that looks like regarding how many would be willing to waive the rides with transportation next year.”

Dr Erardi said the plan is to launch the survey this school year and have the data returned to the school board in June.

The survey, the superintendent said, is in response to a Board of Finance workshop and request.

“I think the belief in some places would be that we may be receiving hundreds of parents saying, ‘I drive my child,’ and maybe we will get that. I don’t know,” said Dr Erardi. “I do know that we have long lines at every single school, but how often those lines are different, I don’t know.”

If the survey comes back with a large response of people saying they would never have their child ride the bus, Dr Erardi said a letter and waiver would then be drafted. The waiver, he said, would have the parent sign saying they understand and are comfortable with their child no longer having a transportation route.

Multiple board members raised concerns with how the school board would implement a reduction of school buses if enough parents waive a bus stop for their child, including what would happen if school were released for an emergency, how the student would get home if a parent could not pick them up, how changes between school years would effect the number of students riding the bus, and how private schools in town would be effected. Board member Michelle Ku also questioned whether having reduced bus stops would alter the efficiency of bus routes over the distance the district spans.

Dr Erardi said he believes there is value in “being able to come back to our other elected officials saying we at least surveyed to see if our assumption was correct. I think there is some value to that. Then we would come back with some real information…”

Both school board Vice Chair Laura Roche and Dr Erardi emphasized the importance of understanding the reasons why parents drive their students to school rather than have their child ride a school bus.