N.J. parents face high costs, chauffeuring children to schools as budgets cut ‘courtesy’ busing

reposted from arti­cle on NJ.com

Kath­leen O’Brien/The Star-Ledger
Amanda Brown/The Star-Ledger

Christo­pher Erd walked to school in Cresskill as a boy. Kerry Useche did as well, in New Prov­i­dence.
Yet both Branch­burg par­ents are adamant their own chil­dren won’t do the same now their school dis­trict has cut so-called “cour­tesy” busing.

Christo­pher Erd’s two chil­dren Wes­ley, 9, left, and Jen­nie, 7, don’t have a school bus to ride to their ele­men­tary school in Branch­burg. The fam­ily falls within the two mile limit for the town’s cour­tesy bus­ing, but the part of the route the chil­dren must take has no side­walks and is very nar­row and curvy.

It’s sim­ply too dan­ger­ous, they say. Useche’s third-grader would have to cross Route 202 with­out the aid of a cross­ing guard — the town won’t add one. Erd’s 7– and 9-year-old would have to walk down a nar­row coun­try road with no shoulders.

Across the state, dozens of dis­tricts are scram­bling to tackle safety and money issues raised when they cut cour­tesy bus­ing after last spring’s abrupt drop in state aid.

In some dis­tricts, bus­ing was sim­ply elim­i­nated for ele­men­tary and mid­dle stu­dents who live within two miles of school and high-school stu­dents who live within 2.5 miles. (Those who live far­ther away must be bused.) In other dis­tricts, par­ents within that radius can buy a seat at prices rang­ing from $200 to $750 a year.

If this con­jures up notions of chil­dren hap­pily walk­ing to school, think again: Offi­cials expect most of the kids who lost free bus­ing will be chauf­feured by par­ents or car­pools. That has them wor­ried about traf­fic at school: Fully half of stu­dents struck by a car near school were hit by a par­ent dri­ving another child, accord­ing to the National High­way Trans­porta­tion and Safety Administration.

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Charg­ing par­ents for a ser­vice the entire com­mu­nity used to fund is a sign of the times, says Boon­ton Town­ship Super­in­ten­dent Roseann Humphrey. When her dis­trict pro­posed a sim­i­lar cut in bus­ing about six years ago, every­one — par­ents and retirees alike — objected. “There are no side­walks, there are no street­lights, so it’s really haz­ardous. It’s unwalk­a­ble,” she said.

Yet this year, when the $180,000 bus­ing tab was put on the bal­lot, it lost by two votes.
“It must be the econ­omy,” she said. “Nowa­days, they’re not so gen­er­ous, whereas in the past, they’d say, ‘Let’s share the cost and keep every­one safe.’”

Since cour­tesy bus­ing isn’t manda­tory, it was an obvi­ous place to shave costs. Dis­tricts have opted to make cut­backs in dif­fer­ent ways.

In Sparta, con­sol­i­dat­ing bus routes meant giv­ing the mid­dle and high schools the same start times. Only a fifth of the 800 stu­dents who lost free bus­ing have pur­chased a “sub­scrip­tion” bus seat at a price of about $500, said War­ren Ceurvels, assis­tant super­in­ten­dent for busi­ness. No cross­ing guards will be added, he said, not­ing the town­ship has its own bud­get problems.

“I’ve had par­ents say, ‘I’m hold­ing you respon­si­ble for my kid’s safety if any­thing hap­pens to him.’ Well, no. It’s the parent’s respon­si­bil­ity to get the kid to school,” he said. “What’s been a cour­tesy before, the school dis­trict can no longer afford.”

Liv­ingston is charg­ing $750 per stu­dent, but fam­i­lies can select morn­ing– or afternoon-only trips for $375.
Branch­burg par­ents were fac­ing a $500 fee per child until the town­ship com­mit­tee hired five bus dri­vers at a lower salary with no health ben­e­fits. That move reduces the fee to $125 for the first half of the school year, with a fam­ily cap of $200.

“For many peo­ple, $500 would be a mon­ster tax increase. Let’s call it what it is,” said Greg Bonin, town­ship admin­is­tra­tor. The inno­v­a­tive arrange­ment gives the school some breath­ing room to rene­go­ti­ate dri­ver salaries and dis­trict health insur­ance costs.

It also gives added urgency to the town’s plan to con­nect major hous­ing devel­op­ments with side­walks. “Right now, Branchburg’s not a walk­a­ble com­mu­nity,” Bonin said.

At West Mor­ris Regional High School Dis­trict, only 10 per­cent of stu­dents have signed up for $610 bus seats. That may mean traf­fic lines at school. “We’re not sure what’s going to hap­pen, said Anthony DiBat­tista, super­in­ten­dent. “It’s uncharted territory.”

Neigh­bor­ing Mount Olive is offer­ing $200 cour­tesy bus­ing, with slightly more than half of the impacted fam­i­lies opt­ing to pay, said Super­in­ten­dent Lar­rie Reynolds.

At  Boon­ton Township’s ele­men­tary school, chil­dren who ride the bus will be dis­missed first, while the kids who were dri­ven will wait in their class­rooms. That gives time for the buses to depart to make way for all the cars. All stu­dents will have to get in and out of cars on the pas­sen­ger side only for safety’s sake.

Despite all the cut­backs, edu­ca­tors expect few chil­dren will end up walk­ing to school.

Stony Brook Road in Branch­burg is a nar­row, wind­ing road and has side­walks only part of the way. Christo­pher Erd’s two chil­dren Wes­ley, age 9, and Jen­nie, age 7, will have to walk this road to the ele­men­tary school because they no longer qual­ify for cour­tesy busing.

All those foggy mem­o­ries — and jokes — about par­ents who walked three miles in the snow to get to school con­tain a grain of truth: In 1969, 42 per­cent of chil­dren walked or biked to school, accord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion. By 2001, that had dropped to 16 percent.

Those who walked to school know it offers chil­dren a rare slice of unsu­per­vised free­dom. As chron­i­cled by Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn to “The Karate Kid,” it can bring adven­ture, romance, or per­haps a bully.

“There’s so much fun on the way to school, ” said Lenore Ske­nazy, author of “Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Chil­dren (With­out Going Nuts with Worry.)” “There are sights, sounds and smells.” You could find an acorn, teach your­self to whis­tle, meet a friend. “It’s not the back of the car, for God’s sake.”

Yet even she votes thumbs-down to walk­ing where the route sim­ply isn’t safe.

“These are sub­urbs that were built with­out a thought of any human being trav­el­ing in any­thing besides a car,” she said.
Newer devel­op­ments were con­structed with­out side­walks — whether to save money, or to adhere to a faux-rural aes­thetic. In addi­tion, newer schools are often built on the out­skirts of town, instead of a cen­tral loca­tion, mak­ing walk­ing even more problematic.

In many cases, sub­scrip­tion bus­ing fees come atop other new fees — the “pay-to-play” charges for every­thing from the foot­ball team to the march­ing band to the spring musi­cal. Schools can’t allow par­ents to pay bus fees in install­ments, either; they bid bus­ing con­tracts and need the money upfront.

Fam­i­lies with incomes low enough to qual­ify for reduced or free school lunches can­not be charged for sub­scrip­tion bus­ing where it is offered.

That doesn’t solve the prob­lem for every­body, though.

Kerry Useche’s hus­band lost his con­tract job as a mail car­rier, and is being rede­ployed to Afghanistan as a mem­ber of the Air Force in Jan­u­ary. Money is tight. Her third-grader’s 1.79-mile route to school would include incom­plete side­walks, a road used as a short­cut by Penn­syl­va­nia com­muters, and Route 202.

Yet when she com­plained that the town­ship wasn’t pro­vid­ing a safe pas­sage to school, as they were obliged to by law, she said the answer was, “Yeah, we are. Pay for it.”