By Andrew Coen
According to Lawrence school board President Frank Parise, yeshiva officials have arranged a school-bus pickup on existing routes at 7:40 a.m., with dismissal at 4 p.m., meaning no extra transportation costs would be incurred by the district.
The transportation agreement comes after District 15 parents, whose children attend the newly formed yeshiva in Hewlett, learned this summer that they would not receive busing for the coming year because their final lease for the school, at 36 Franklin Ave. in Hewlett, was approved after the April 1 filing deadline. Tova Plaut, a parent coordinator for the new yeshiva, pressed district officials to provide the transportation, saying that it could be done legally. Plaut and other District 15 parents were prepared to appeal to state Department of Education Commissioner Richard Mills to overrule the district if their request for busing were denied.
Plaut could not be reached for comment on the agreement, but Parise said that Lawrence school officials plan to meet with her to work out the logistics in the coming days.
"Anytime the staff from the Lawrence school district and the staff from the local [private] schools work together, you can resolve any problem," said Parise.
According to lawyers for the Lawrence school board, while a district is operating on austerity, the district has the right not to grant transportation to anyone who files after the April 1 deadline if it costs the district extra money. The district has the discretion to determine if a late filing is reasonable and can still grant the transportation request, according to the school board's lawyers.
The new Hewlett yeshiva, which provides an honors program for gifted students and a mainstream curriculum, enrolls around 70 students, with more than 40 living in District 15, according to Plaut.
The school board was deadlocked, 3-3, during a vote at a special Aug. 16 meeting to determine whether the yeshiva's late application was reasonable. Trustees Pamela Greenbaum, Stanley Kopilow and Kathy Raquet voted in favor of the resolution, saying the parents' request was not reasonable. School board President Frank Parise and trustees Dr. Asher Mansdorf and Dr. David Sussman voted against the resolution and for the yeshiva to be provided busing. Trustee Murray Forman was absent from the meeting, which was not a regularly scheduled meeting.
During the meeting, the school board's attorney, Florence Frazer, said that in the past, appeals by other districts to the state for transportation approval, when they missed the deadline, have been denied, including cases in which the school started after the required date. Lisa Rice of the Lawrence transportation office also said that she does not recall a time when the district provided transportation to those who submitted applications after the deadline and where there would be an extra cost to the district.
Parise said during the meeting that he supports the transportation request, even though it was late, because the yeshiva opened after the deadline. He suggested that the board come up with future guidelines that permits busing if a school opens after April 1. "I think there should be a difference between filing late and a school opening after the deadline," said Parise.
Greenbaum lashed out at Parise's idea, saying, "You think the board knows better than the state."
Lawrence superintendent Dr. John Fitzsimons said he reviewed the transportation budget prior to the meeting to see if there were enough savings from a year ago but he said he could find only $1,600 in unused money left over from the 2004-05 school year.
Fitzsimons also said that he and the assistant superintendent for business, Deirdre Gambino, who is leaving the post on Sept. 9, were concerned about adding more money to the transportation budget for next year because of rising fuel costs. "We cannot exceed our budget cap in a contingency budget," said Fitzsimons.
Dr. Sussman said during the meeting that he expects at least a $2 million surplus at the end of the next year since that has been the case in his decade on the board and that there should be enough money to provide the transportation for the yeshiva students. "[If] we're denying transportation and at the end of the year we have a $2 million surplus, then shame on us," said Sussman.
Fitzsimons said while there was a surplus at the end of last year, it was mainly due to revenues generated from out-of-district students and not from unused funds.
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