Bolandi says drivers unfamiliar with routes
By: Dick Brinster
HIGHTSTOWN The East Windsor Regional district’s transportation plan for parochial school students is mired in delays that continue to frustrate parents and school officials.
But Schools Superintendent Ron Bolandi says he is hopeful of a reduction in delays which he says are attributable in part to drivers for a private contractor being unfamiliar with the routes. He placed drivers from the district on buses last week to help them find their way.
"I had two of my senior drivers on those buses showing them where to go," Mr. Bolandi said at Monday night’s meeting of the Board of Education. "The district has been working with the schools and the bus company to alleviate the problem."
Mr. Bolandi reached an agreement last month with First Student of Trenton to carry children from the borough and East Windsor to and from four schools. Being served are Notre Dame High School in Lawrence, and three elementary schools; St. Paul in Princeton, St. Gregory the Great in Hamilton Square and Our Lady of Sorrows in Mercerville.
The district had transported the children with its own buses for several years, but said it could no longer afford to do so because of rising fuel costs and other expenses. The deal was reached after many parents objected to the alternative, a payment in lieu of transportation of $826 per student, the maximum allowed by the state.
Debbie Barbet of East Windsor the mother of a daughter attending St. Paul and another going to Notre Dame and one of about 20 parents who attended the meeting Monday night said she is upset with the delays.
"We believe that the current schedule is not an acceptable solution to our busing needs," she said, reading from a letter she sent to Mr. Bolandi. "A majority of the families have stressed their displeasure with the schedule for both pickup in the morning and drop-off in the evening."
Ms. Barbet, one of three parents who spoke at Monday’s meeting, was particularly critical of the return runs, saying parents were told by the district that children would be aboard buses no more than 30 minutes after classes ended and that morning cluster stops also would make the commute reasonable.
"We never imagined a 6:30 a.m. pickup with a one-hour layover prior to the opening of school," Ms. Barbet said in the letter also sent to district transportation chief Pat Bye, the school board, officials of the Diocese of Trenton, principals of the four schools, state Sen. Ellen Karcher, D-Monmouth and Mercer, and Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck, R-12th.
"The pickup time after school let out was from 60-70 minutes, two to three times longer than initially stipulated."
Mr. Bolandi, who conceded that the schedule is difficult for the parents and children, said he has been working with the carrier and the diocese in hopes of trimming the delay times. He said Ms. Bye is closely monitoring the problem and has followed and ridden on buses herself.
"She has assured me that she can get these times down," he said. "She feels confident that this can change."
Mr. Bolandi said the district also has established cell phone links to those buses, enabling it to communicate with drivers.
Mrs. Barbet said she saw a bus parked for 20 minutes last week before starting its morning run from the Melvin H. Kreps Middle School, which along with Hightstown High School is one of only two departure locations.
"He’s following his schedule, but in the time he’s sitting there I could have my children sleeping an extra 15 minutes," she told Mr. Bolandi.
Contacted Wednesday, Ms. Barbet said she’s hopeful that the problem can be worked out, but she will not relent in the objections until the parents are satisfied that every possible remedy has been explored.
"We understand and appreciate that East Windsor has worked hard on this, and we will continue to work closely with them until the issue is resolved," she said.
She said Mr. Bolandi is setting up a meeting between patents and Ms. Bye to discuss readjusting the drop-off and pickup times.
The decision to implement the busing plan resulted in a lawsuit last month against the district, the state Department of Education and the state attorney general.
Mr. Bolandi said last week that he agrees with the thrust of the suit, filed last month in Mercer County state Superior Court by Edward Harrington Heyburn, an attorney whose two children attend St. Paul. Mr. Heyburn has said his children are gone 12 hours each day and that he has decided to transport them himself.
Mr. Bolandi said last week that he won’t be satisfied to continue what he termed a "Band-Aid" solution from the start.
"I’m already working with legislators and the diocese of Trenton to craft legislation to have the law changed," he said. "If the lawsuit helps, great. I hope it does."
In other business Monday night, the district’s 12 goals for this school year were unveiled by Assistant Superintendent Mike Dzwonar. Among the goals submitted to the state Department of Education are four monitored by the federal government under the No Child Left Behind law.
The district failed to achieve proficiency when less than 75 percent of special education students passed aptitude tests last school year in mathematics at the High School and in language arts at the Ethel McKnight Elementary school. The goals are to decrease the nonproficient status by 10 percent in both areas.
A plan of remedial action in those areas must be submitted for state approval Oct. 15, then passed on to the federal government.
Included in the district’s goals are a 10 percent decrease from 2005-2006 in the number of nonproficient English Language Learning students in language arts and math at the Kreps school. While under new federal guidelines remedial action is no longer required for either, Mr. Dzwonar said the district chose them as two of its 10 challenge goals.
A fifth category in which students were nonproficient was language arts among 11th-graders at the High School. There, the goal is to decrease that rate by 5 percent.
Two percent increases in the proficient status among the entire student bodies in language arts at the Walter C. Black, Perry L. Drew and Grace N. Rogers elementary schools in language arts also are among the goals. The others are increasing by 2 percent the advanced proficiency rate of all students in math at the Black, Drew, McKnight and Rogers schools.
Advanced proficiency is achieved when 80 percent of the students pass attitude tests.

