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The school bus problem in Lakewood is as follows there is 24,000 yeshiva students who cost the district $20 million but the state only pays for the 8,000 public school student @ 14000.00 per public school student for a total $112 million. Every student living within 2.5 miles from the school is entitled to bus service according to state law.
The monitor in order to cut yeshiva school busing threaten to have co-ed school busing and the yeshivas walked out.
The problem with implementing co-ed yeshiva busing is as follows:
A) The bus routes are design by the schools and each school is only one sex so the district would have take a boys school and a girls school and mix them together. Assuming 50 kids to a bus that’s 480 bus routes that he has to do by Aug or at least Sept..
B) Unless most of the buses are half empty he is not going to get much saving.
C) Even if there is savings by combining students from more then one school why not combine students of two schools of the same sex.
D) If he goes through with his threat of co-ed busing. He will have to pay $20 million for busing that nobody will use while at the same time explaining to a judge why the state IS NOT VIOLATING THE YESHIVA STUDENT CIVIL RIGHTS. Also if the district does not provide busing they are suppose to pay $884.00 per student for the 2015-2016 school year for 24,000 all yeshiva student that comes to $ 21,260.00 at 16,000 those who live outside the 2.5 miles it come to $14,144,000.00.
E) On top of the district and or the state being liable for $14 – 21 million dollars the states ability to take over a school district will also be in jeopardy.
The only cut the monitor can take is courtesy busing which will effect about 8,000 yeshiva and 4,000 public school students for a saving of about $6 million this year. The only problems are:
A) How many yeshiva students will transfer to schools 2.5 miles
away and become state mandated?
B) How will the cancellation of courtesy busing effect public school attendance. Each day a student is absence it cost the district $63.63 and so they will have to encourage the students to walk the 2.5 miles in all types of weather.
The only way is to have school bus funding for private schools separate from public school funding
Joseph: Everyone loses the courtesy busing if the monitor decides to go that route. Nobody knows right now neither the private nor public school parents what he will decide it will be a surprise in Sept. when it too late. Then the parent will have to go to court.
The District will have to have contracts with the bus companies and routes set up by Sept. so the decision will have to be made by Aug.at the latest, less than 2 week away. Because the District waited to the last minute to put the busing service out to bidding costs for it will be higher.
Last year some of the yeshivas had a tiered starting time as you suggested but they got nothing in return not even a promise that they would not cut their busing so this year they are not doing it. They will have to go to court and a judge will be deciding if the state, as it the state’s monitor who is doing the cutting, is adequately funding the district for the mandated yeshiva students transportation costs. I also don’t think the state wants to be shown as denying students school busing and denying them a good education so the state will compromise after they are taken to court. The judge can have the state pay the whole district’s education cost as there is suppose to be NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION, since the state monitor overrode the boards budget.
Joseph:
The monitor can raise tax rates by 2% together with the assestment, taxes can go up without the referendum.
Special ed cost about $70, 000 per student per year so it’s possible but the board pays the legal cost for the student which can range from $200 – $1,000 per hour so these cases can cost over $100,000.00 per case they may not want to fight unless they have to.
The monitor is planning to cut bus services as this is the only service where he can effect the frummies. Another solution is to transfer all yeshiva student in the district so they are in schools 2.5 miles from their home then the district MUST pay for busing by law. If the monitor decides to go with co-ed busing the state opens themselves to a discrimination suit and if proven the monitor is gone.
The secular parent just want to stick it to the frummies they don’t realize that all this will do is bankrupt the district. What is needed is for private school students to be counted for funding purposes.
By the way Public School was spelled in error in the my post .
Joseph: 1) The only services the Frum community gets are busing & Special Ed. Federal law requires the Board to pay legal cost if the parents win a special ed case which will cost thousands of dollars. Although he can still raise property taxes for all.
2)The Monitor can over ride the school board so what ever he says goes.
3) Up until know all students in the district got free bus service no matter how far they lived from the school. September is when this may take effect.
Lesschumrus: I never said that yeshiva students will drop out of school. All that will happen is that the 8,000 yeshiva student Approx 30% live within 2.5 miles of the school will have to be driven to school resulting in traffic jam and pollution. The 4,000 puplic school students approx. 50% live within 2.5 miles of the school who are mostly lower income may have to walk to school they are the ones who will drop out. even if they come they will be so tired they will fall a sleep in class. The reason we have school lunch program is so they will have a full stomache and be able to learn better
There is no school monitor presently in either East Ramapo or Lawrence as of now. In Lakewood there is one and he is trying to cut school busing for 4-12 graders who live within 2.5 miles of the school but this will apply to both private and public school students. Gov. Christie is running for president and there will be a debate next month.If you do’t want it to come to NY you should try to fight it in NJ as they are using it as the basis for having it in NY. If you can publicize the fact that Christie’s idea of “NO STUDENT LEFT BEHIND” is to deny students school bus rides so they can’t get to school to get left behind. Or if they do walk 2.5 miles they are going to be so tried they will be sleeping in class and not learning. Or does he really think students are going to walk 2.5 miles each day for 8 years just to graduate he is sadly mistaken. All that will happen is the drop out rate will start in primary instead of high school Just posting on various websites maybe enough to convince him to tell his monitor to leave busing alone.