By:Andrew Coen
After a letter was sent to 19 families in District 14 on June 16, informing them of the transportation change, parents showed up at the July 6 school board meeting to raise the possibility of a lawsuit if the board does not provide the transportation they have received in the past. The district plans to provide funding for the students to take the public bus that travels on West Broadway, between Far Rockaway and Lynbrook, to get home, but parents are not happy with that solution. "For [Abraham] just to walk to the bus stop is a quarter mile, and for him to walk in the dark in the wintertime, with ice and the terrible visibility, is just wrong," said Perl of the route her son would have to take from his school on Frost Lane in Lawrence to West Broadway.
Hewlett-Woodmere attorney Jerome Ehrlich emphasized in a phone interview that the transportation cuts are for all students regardless of whether they go to public or private schools. "There are no children in Hewlett-Woodmere who will be transported after 5:30 regardless of the school they attend," said Ehrlich. "The district can determine reasonable times for kids based on their instructional programs."
The transportation change affects students who attend four local yeshivas, including the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach (HALB) in Woodmere, Rambam Mesivta in Lawrence, Yeshiva of Far Rockaway and Yeshiva Darchei Torah in Far Rockaway. The high school yeshivas of the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway in Cedarhurst, Stella K. Abraham in Hewlett Bay Park, Reenas Bais Yaakov in Hewlett and other private and catholic schools would not be affected, since they have dismissal times before 5:30 p.m., according to Perl.
Increases in transportation costs in recent years have come from high school bus contracts as well as state mandates that require schools to provide transportation to all private-school students within 15 miles, according to school officials.
According to Ehrlich, the district projects that the number of students in yeshivas at 5 p.m. is 80, but by 5:30 the number drops to just 18. "There just aren't enough students at school after 5:30 p.m. to warrant having the transportation," he said. "With transportation costs increasing, the board wanted to look at ways to save money and to do it with the least impact on the students."
District officials would not comment on the possible lawsuit, but newly elected school board President Howard Weinick said in a phone interview that the board listened carefully to the parents at the July 6 meeting, and may look for ways to see if the transportation after 5:30 p.m. can continue. "We always try to apply our transportation policies in an evenhanded way, but there are limitations," said Weinick. "We have to strike a balance of extending flexibility of services to our resident children and our fiscal responsibility."
Weinick said that the board has spent the last two years looking at ways to conduct a more efficient transportation operation by reducing the number of buses, changing the minimum mileage for sixth-graders from three-quarters of a mile to a mile, and promoting the use of public transportation. The district has also eliminated music and middle school suite buses that run later in the day, according to Weinick.
In the June 16 letter sent to parents affected by the cuts, Director of Transportation Joseph DiBartola explained some of the reasons for the cuts. "The basis for this decision is that considerable expense could be avoided, and this school year the number of students who would be affected is very small," DiBartolo wrote.
Perl has hired attorney Alexander Novack to study the feasibility of a lawsuit against the district. Novack said that suits could also be brought against individual school board members if it is determined that cuts were based on a bias against the orthodox community. "This smells of discrimination, because the only students that are affected are yeshiva students," said Perl. "They knew that public and catholic-school children get out earlier, so that this change does not affect them," she said. "They have to recognize that the orthodox community is a vibrant community in the Five Towns and is increasing every year in District 14."
According to Weinick, the district will save approximately $34,000 by cutting late busing. Voters approved the district's $74.7 million budget on May 18.
Hewlett Bay Park resident Murry Engeland, whose son Samuel just completed his freshman year at HALB, is also affected by the cuts. "As a working parent that does not return home on a usual basis until after 10 p.m., my spouse will be forced to pick up our kid from school four nights per week," said Engeland. "[My wife] will be forced to leave our home with our two elementary school children, disrupting the homework of our two minor children."
Engeland said that if his son took public transportation, he would be forced to walk about 6/10 of a mile from HALB to West Broadway to take the bus, and then about another mile to their home. "I feel that this board is ignoring a minority of the students in the district who really receive very few services," said Engeland.
Weinick said that transportation is one of the few areas that the board is not allowed to put additional money into, but that if additional savings are discovered in the transportation budget, they could be earmarked for providing transportation after 5:30 p.m. "Anything and everything is always possible," said Weinick.
This school year, 1,726 District 14 public school students were provided bus transportation, compared with 735 students in private schools, Weinick said.
