Citizens United for Safe Passage (CUSP) had, as of Tuesday, 35 members
By John Tredrea
The first meeting of a grass-roots organization of parents opposed to new school busing policies was scheduled to be held last night at a Brandon Farms clubhouse.
The organization is Citizens United for Safe Passage (CUSP) and had, as of Tuesday, 35 members.
The group identifies itself as "a nonpartisan organization of concerned parents who believe that all children within Hopewell Valley from Hopewell Township, Pennington Borough and Hopewell Borough should be provided with safe passage as they travel to and from area elementary, middle and high schools."
One of the parents who founded CUSP, Bob Giangrasso of Brandon Farms, said CUSP already includes several dozen Hopewell Valley Regional School District parents. He said the group’s members are angered over the school district’s decision to discontinue, beginning next September, all school busing not mandated by state law.
The only students the state requires school districts to bus are elementary students who live more than 2 miles from school and secondary students who live more than 2.5 miles away.
Taken off school buses this academic year (2006-2007) were about 200 nonmandated courtesy busing students who live in the Brandon Farms and Penn View Heights developments. That the students received courtesy busing meant that, in the view of school officials, their walk to school was safe. Mr. Giangrasso is one of a battery of parents who have maintained that the walk of many of these students is not safe.
Nonmandated hazardous busing for an estimated 811 students is slated to be discontinued by the school district next year.
The term "hazardous" derives from the district’s view that the route these students walk to school is hazardous. The cost of busing these students could be paid by the district’s three municipalities or parents. Talks on the issue of who might pick up the cost after the school district stops paying are about to get under way between the Valley’s school and municipal officials.
CUSP members feel the school district is shirking a basic responsibility.
"We are greatly distressed by the school board’s pronouncement to abandon their moral responsibility to provide busing for our kids, and felt that organizing was the only way to combat their decision.
"We believe that these policies must be scrutinized very carefully, and that all discussions should be in public, with participation by parents, elected officials, school district officials and as both Hopewell Township Mayor Vanessa Sandom and Pennington Borough Mayor James Benton have said in full view of the public and the press. Parents are fed up, and they’re not going to take this lying down," said Mr. Giangrasso.
"It’s estimated that over a thousand kids either have been, or will be affected by the school board’s decision to eliminate so-called courtesy busing this year, and all hazardous busing next year . . . We urge all their parents, indeed all citizens in the Valley who are concerned about child safety to join CUSP," he added.
CUSP has a Web site: www.hvcusp.org.

