By Andrew Hackmack
It was the last of the three that drew the ire of a small group of parents at last week¹s District 13 Board of Education meeting.
Several homeowners from Wellsboro Road and the surrounding streets, whose children attend the Howell Road School, say that some of them do not qualify for transportation because of the way the district calculates mileage.
One resident, Vinny Pandit, said the distance to the school from each home in his neighborhood is based on a pedestrian walkway off Martin Road that accesses the Howell Road campus. Pandit said that entrance is used mostly by children who live on a small circular street off North Fletcher Avenue. Using that entrance as a basis, he said, he and about a half-dozen other families fall just short of the mile needed to qualify for busing.
³The school bus doesn¹t go to the marking gate,² Pandit said. ³It goes to the front of the school.²
So, Pandit says, the front of the school should be used to measure distances from homes, ³No ifs, ands or buts.² He added that the Martin Road side gate is not an acceptable entrance because it is not monitored by school staff, and therefore is not as safe as the front entrance.
District 13 provides bus transportation to students in grades K through 3 living more than a half-mile from the school and children in grades 4 through 6 living more than one mile away. Board of Education President William Stris described this as a ³more liberal² policy than what the district is required to do. According to New York state law, transportation must be provided only to elementary-school children who live at least two miles away.
Pandit is the parent of a fourth-grader as well as two younger children. He said that because of the district¹s method of measuring distance, the regulations will affect him through 2019.
District 13 Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Lison explained that the mileage is based on the shortest traveling distance from the front walk of a child¹s house to the closest entrance of a school. In the case of Pandit and his neighbors, the entrance on Martin Road is the closest to their homes. ³It might not be a route that the bus would take,² Lison said.
This formula is based on state guidelines for calculating distance, Lison said. The district uses a bicycle to determine the exact mileage from a home to the nearest entrance of the school.
JoAnn Iorlano, who has a child in fourth grade, also falls just short of qualifying for transportation, and questions the legitimacy of using the school¹s side gate to calculate distance. ³I don¹t know where it states where they can measure from,² Iorlano said, adding that she understands that the school district should measure along the shortest distance, but like Pandit, believes it should be the shortest distance to the main entrance of the school.
If the front entrance were used as the measuring point, Pandit and Iorlano said, they and other neighbors would meet the one-mile requirement for their older elementary-age children. ³If I was under a mile, I wouldn¹t go and fight for this,² Pandit said. ³We work hard. We pay high taxes. We need to get our money¹s worth.²
Michael Gallagher spoke in support of his neighbors who have school-age children. Gallagher explained that his children, who attended Howell Road in the 1980s, were bused to school.
Stris pointed out that sometime in the 1980s, district officials found an error in the way distance was being calculated. The mistake was fixed and some residents lost their busing, he explained.
Gallagher also said that children who live in houses that qualify for transportation wait for buses in front of homes that do not. Assistant Superintendent Meredith Brosnan responded that this is usually done at corner homes to help consolidate spots.
Still, Gallagher said, it is extremely frustrating for parents to see children waiting in front of their house when they cannot put their own children on the bus. He said that the district¹s transportation policy seems ³a little rigid,² and called on school officials to make changes.
Not everyone in the audience was sympathetic to the residents¹ cause, however. Ike Tress, a member of the Norwood Park Civic Association, said there are areas all over the district where a few families fall just short of qualifying for transportation. ³Are you going to make a special exception?² he asked. ³No way in hell.²
Lison said the district appreciates the concerns of the families, but it cannot arbitrarily change the boundaries. ³There are always going to be some people who just miss out,² she said.
Voters must make change
Stris explained that District 13 is the only one of the three elementary districts in Valley Stream that provides transportation. He said the current policy was approved by voters in 1952. For that reason, subsequent changes to busing regulations cannot be made without voter approval.
³The Board of Education cannot do it,² Stris said, saying that this is based on legal advice from the district¹s attorney. ³It has been taken out of our hands.²
A proposition could be put on the ballot for the annual budget vote in May, Stris said. In order for that to happen, the district would need to receive a petition with at least 100 signatures of qualified voters a minimum of 30 days before the vote.
Stris added that since transportation was initially adopted, three such propositions have failed. He said that busing costs district taxpayers about $775,000 per year.
Pandit and Iorlano responded that their issue is not with the qualifying mileage, but with the way that mileage is calculated. ³Nobody drops their kids off at this gate,² Iorlano said. ³It¹s a joke.²
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