When school starts next week for about 11,800 students in the Freehold Regional High School District, some of the teenagers will no longer be provided with bus transportation to and from their school.
In a letter to parents, Business Administrator Sean Boyce explained that a largescale rerouting project has resulted in changes to transportation services in the district.
These changes, he said, were made to reduce costs without compromising the safety of students in a time of diminishing state funding.
Beginning next week, students who live less than a half-mile from the high school they attend will not receive bus transportation to and from school.
By law, the FRHSD is only mandated to provide transportation to students who live more than 2.5 miles from their high school. The district has the right to tell students who live less than 2.5 miles from their school to provide for their own transportation.
At this time, FRHSD administrators have decided that only students who live less than a half-mile from their school will not be provided with transportation.
Regarding students who do receive bus transportation, students may now be required to walk between three-tenths and five-tenths of a mile from their home to their bus stop, according to Boyce’s letter.
This is a change from past years when multiple bus stops were often provided within a smaller area.
Boyce’s letter also states that more than half of the after-school activity bus routes have been eliminated for the 2010-11 school year. As a result of this change, students who ride the activity buses will now be dropped off at predetermined centralized locations.
Those locations are expected to be posted on the FRHSD’s Internet website on Sept. 1.
— Rebecca Morton