Final Transportation Committee Meeting Allows Retrospection, With A Nod Toward Next School Year

By Eliza Hallabeck

During the final meeting of the Transportation Committee, held Friday, November 7, the group looked at how the school year started and where the process will continue to go from here.

Director of Transportation Anthony DiLonardo said the beginning of the school year is normally when complaints from parents start coming in.

This year some complaints were expected, Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson said, because the Transportation Committee and the school district spent the summer working on the bus routes and looking into the issue of overcrowding on buses.

“We still have, actually there’s about a third, that experience on any given day where children are sitting about three to a seat,” said Mr DiLonardo, regarding the first tier of bus routes, which include the high school and middle school students.

One bus, number 59, can be overloaded on any given day at the high school in the afternoon, and an extra vehicle has to be sent to the school, Mr Salvatore said. Bus number 59 is a short bus.

“[The problem] is a combination of two things,” Mr DiLonardo said. “There are car seats on the bus, the children don’t always ride and when they show up [it’s] not overcrowded, [it’s] overloaded. So we have to get another vehicle out there.”

Dr Robinson said technically that one-third of the buses are under capacity.

“It’s just these are three to a seat,” she said. “These are big bodies. It’s a physical problem that’s an issue. Three teenagers to a seat just doesn’t work.”

Many complaints from parents and emails on the subject of overcrowding were brought to the attention of the Transportation Department, Mr DiLonardo said, and several parents came into the offices.

“A lot of parents make the decision after that first week of school, ten days of school, that they’re going to drive their children,” said Mr DiLonardo, “because their children don’t want to be on the crowded bus. And those are the complaints we have.”

Bus stop locations have also been an area of complaints, according to Dr Robinson. The work done over the summer on the bus routes focused on making them more efficient, and, she said, complaints are coming in from parents about them.

“There’s some people who are saying, ‘but I’ve always had the bus stop at my driveway.’ That kind of thing. That was expected, but no kid is in an unsafe situation,” said Dr Robinson.

Dr Robinson said Mr DiLonardo and Ron Bienkowski, director of business for the school district, went out to inspect each situation that was reported as unsafe.

“This is going on all over the state, in terms of trying to make this more efficient. And it is hard for parents to make this transition,” said Dr Robinson.

As far as costs are concerned, Dr Robinson said the effort accomplished what the Transportation Committee was aiming for.

 “The community is so concerned with fiscal responsibility,” said Board of Education member Lillian Bittman, “and we are trying desperately to make the bus routes efficient so we don’t have to keep adding buses. So there’s a tradeoff. We need to communicate that so the parents understand that we’re not just trying to be hard, we’re trying to make hard decisions.”

Dr Robinson said she thinks the parents know it is a safe system.

Three students to a seat on the first tier levels is just going to stay the same over the next couple of years, according to Ms Bittman.

“Depending on what projections we look at, I mean if we go by central office projections, we are at 2,658 next year on the first tier,” said Mr DiLonardo. Other projections he said could be 2,691 and 2,706, and “depending on where those models fall, I mean even if you hit them in the middle, we’re going to see a substantial growth of students in the first tier.”

Approximate numbers of registering students will be known more toward March or April, according to Mr DiLonardo.

“I think just at this point we’re at a holding pattern now until we do the budget and see what we get starting to register in the late spring,” said Dr Robinson.

The system was standardized as much as possible, Ms Robinson said.

“The thing that is going to be unique for next year is we have a shift of kids to the next grade level, which puts them into tier one, but we don’t have a decrease in the lower grade levels. So that’s sort of a unique situation,” said Dr Robinson.

Before the meeting ended, Ms Bittman thanked each committee member for participating.

“All is all it was a very smooth start,” Dr Robinson said.