high school students
appears to be saved
Courtesy busing for
high school students
appears to be saved
BY JOYCE BLAY
Staff Writer
Public and private high school students may not have to walk to school after all, according to Lakewood Superintendent of Schools Ernest Cannava.
Two months after a draft letter was leaked to the media in which Cannava warned parents that without additional transportation funding, older students would not receive courtesy busing to school, the Board of Education is expected to present the solution to its problem to the public at a Jan. 26 meeting.
"We will know at that time how many more students will require transportation to schools," Cannava said last week.
Neither Cannava nor transportation committee Chairman Harvey Kranz would reveal specifics of the plan to the Tri-Town News prior to the meeting. However, since April, Cannava and board members expressed anger and frustration after the Township Committee reduced the school budget that voters defeated in April.
School district representatives asked the township for a bailout as early as October, citing the reduction as the primary reason for insufficient transportation funds. Board President Chet Galdo denied that the timing of the request and leak of the draft letter were designed to place pressure on Township Committee members to approve the bailout.
Transportation funding continues to be a controversial line item of the school district’s budget since the board provides so-called courtesy busing with more lenient requirements in place than the state suggests.
Attempts by activists to pressure the township and the school district into conforming their courtesy busing standards to those of the state have failed. Some residents have suggested the courtesy busing under the more lenient regulations is provided to the Orthodox Jewish community by elected officials so they can maintain the voting support of that community.
Residents in the Orthodox Jewish community will often vote for whomever the Vaad, a leadership group, endorses for office.
Incumbent Marta Harrison, last year’s mayor, declined to run for another term on the committee in 2003. The Democrat tapped to run for her seat was Meir Lichtenstein, who won election in November. However, Democrat Mitch Dolobowsky lost his bid for another term on the town’s governing body. Republican Menashe Miller won election in November with Lichtenstein.
Both Lichtenstein and Miller received the Vaad’s endorsement. Dolobowsky, who received it in his previous run for the committee, was not endorsed last year.
Just two weeks before the election, Cannava and board members asked Harrison for $300,000 to $400,000 in emergency funding at a private meeting. She confirmed the meeting with a reporter from the Tri-Town News, but said she did not make any promises. Harrison later consulted with other committee members, who decided to hire consultant Frank Marlow of Huntington, N.Y., to examine the school district’s budget.
Marlow declined to reveal his findings to the Tri-Town News on Sunday and he was unavailable when Mayor Raymond Coles said he contacted the educator on Monday. However, Coles said he would reveal Marlow’s findings as soon as he and other committee members had a chance to review them upon receiving the report.
Coles did not believe it would be possible to fund the school district’s transportation shortfall even if Marlow’s review of its budget confirms Cannava’s assertion that such a shortfall exists.
"This is going to be an extremely tight (municipal) budget this year," said Coles. "The economy wasn’t good. We need to maintain a certain amount of surplus so we don’t fall into the same trap as the school district."
When asked if the scenario — the end of courtesy busing for public and private school ninth- through 12th-graders — painted by his draft letter last fall would yet come to pass, Cannava said it was not being considered at this time, but did not rule out the possibility that it might be considered in the future.