Board must admit
problem with busing
The Lakewood Board of Education’s overly generous courtesy busing policy has been the subject of numerous news stories over the past few years.
Courtesy busing is back in the news again this week, as board members try to come to grips with what they say will be a budget shortfall that may mean courtesy busing for high school students may be eliminated in the near future.
The board appears to be taking the route of blaming the Township Committee for the problem, but we fail to see how the committee is responsible for another mess that board members and the district’s administrators seem to have gotten themselves into.
Board members claim the committee’s directive to cut a defeated school budget in May led to the present situation.
We don’t see it the same way.
The board has a courtesy busing policy that exceeds the requirements set by the state Department of Education.
Courtesy busing refers to a policy in which a student is not required to be provided with busing, but is as a "courtesy" extended by the district. That costs money.
Advocates for Lakewood’s public school students have argued for several years that the board is wasting millions of taxpayer dollars by extending bus service beyond what is required. We sympathize with those people who have tried to make their point to the board.
For them it must be like banging their heads against an unyielding brick wall.
The Lakewood school board and administration have stubbornly refused to admit that the courtesy busing policy as it exists is likely wasting money — a lot of money.
To top it off, the board refused to discuss the matter with members of the public at Monday’s meeting. "Stone-walling" seems to be the only way to describe what’s going on here.
Intelligent, reasonable people want answers to the busing situation. They deserve those answers in an honest, timely fashion from the district’s administrators.
Until those answers are forthcoming, the board and the administration should stop blaming the Township Commit-tee and asking for a financial bailout.
The committee and the state bailed the board out of financial problems a few short years ago and now, unfortunately, it looks like it’s more of the same.