By: Cara Latham
MILLSTONE School officials Monday told more than 50 parents some of whom were very angry ‘about the possibility that students attending private schools might not have transportation during the first week of the school year.
The news comes as school officials try to find a solution to the private school busing matter that has been looming over their heads all summer.
The school district has been faced with a shortage of bus drivers, forcing the district to have to bid the routes to private companies. Officials are also dealing with a state law prohibiting them from offering busing to private-school students regardless of who drives the buses if the cost exceeds $856 per pupil.
In addition, new bus routes the district had to create as a result of the new middle school set to open in September on Waters Lane means that drivers now have to transport district students back and forth to four schools, rather than to just the former elementary and middle schools and Allentown High School.
The district also transported 158 students to four private schools last year.
Also, as a result of the new bus routes, bus drivers will be working fewer hours. ‘And although their hours are being cut, they still won’t be available to do other runs outside of the district.
The district now has to bid for each of the routes to those four private schools. The only one of those schools that officials have found transportation for so far is St. Rose of Lima, a parochial grammar school in Freehold, because bids for transportation to that school came in at $856 per pupil exactly at the state limit.
A bid for busing to Notre Dame High School in Lawrence came back over the state-required threshold at $1,049 per pupil, and no bids at all were received for busing to St. John Vianney High School in Holmdel and Christian Brothers Academy, in Lincroft, school board officials said.
However, Superintendent Mary Ann Donahue said late Tuesday afternoon that she was "very optimistic transportation would be able to be provided for Notre Dame," and was expected to know for sure on Wednesday, after Messenger-Press deadline.
School officials and Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck who attended Monday night’s meeting said they had met with St. John Vianney, Notre Dame, the Monmouth Ocean Education Services Commission, the Diocese of Trenton and the New Jersey Network of Catholic School Families earlier Monday to discuss the situation.
On Monday night, Dr. Donahue said Notre Dame High School officials were contacting all its Millstone students to get exact numbers of students needing transportation. If officials there can get the number lowered from two buses to one bus with 52 students, there is "a possibility we do have a bus there," she said.
The school district will be going back out to bid on the routes for the schools that currently do not have transportation. Ms. Beck said she was calling every bus company to try to get them to provide the service. Those bid specs that will go out Friday will contain redesigned routes with fewer stops. They will also eliminate busing on half days for those schools. The bids, however, will not be returned until Aug. 30.
"We’re going back out to bid and trying to entice them by adding more students to the buses," Ms. Beck, R-12th, said. "It will make it more lucrative to them.
"We’re trying to get something in place," Ms. Beck said, adding that school officials have been trying really hard to find a solution.
Dr. Donahue mentioned that St. John’s has a bus, but no driver. Private companies have not been bidding on the private-school busing because they won’t make enough money because of the state limits, , officials said.
Parents, however, said they still felt officials could do more to try to get busing provided for their children. Some said they felt there was a lack of communication on the school board’s part because they didn’t inform parents of the situation until June, after some of them had already made deposits on tuition for the following year. Board members, however, said they didn’t get numbers from private schools about how many students Millstone would need to transport until that time.
Other parents suggested other solutions to the problem. Among those solutions was to take away busing from public school students who lived within two miles of school, hire crossing guards, and using those bus drivers from the district to transport private-school children. Another suggestion was to outsource Millstone’s public-school busing, since there is no per-pupil cap on the cost for transporting those students.
Dr. Donahue said if the district accepts a bid for a bus company, the district will be held to that amount of money for every following year.
Resident Wayne Londregan said he felt the board was losing the public’s trust because it couldn’t find a way to fulfill the basic need of getting kids to school. He criticized the board for waiting until Aug. 30, when the bids are in, to come up with other solutions.
"Why can’t we be more proactive?" he said. "Why don’t we have something else we are working on at the same time?"
Dr. Donahue said the district was looking into other options. But if the district cannot provide transportation for the students, there are other options, officials said, including paying parents the aid in lieu of transportation in the amount of $856 for each child for the year, given that they live within 20 miles of the school that child is attending, as required by state law, officials said.
