The long bus ride
Last nights School Committee meeting regarding the busing issue was discussed and more questions seem to surface. The hour and a half bus ride for kids is just to much. About 700 students currently ineligible for transportation should be on buses by the end of the month, the superintendent told the School Committee last night.
But it was noted by transportation director Rick Gallagher that the problem is exasperated by kids being bused across Town. (my words.... because of school choice)
"I'm just worried about it," said board member Adam Blumer, who feared some parents who applied for bus passes wouldn't get them. "I'm tired of getting into another situation where we send out a mixed message."
Parents (who can afford it) are stuck between paying 270.00 or so each child or making other arrangements. I wonder what else could have been cut to keep the busing that way it was... and still have not had an answer from the school committee, on how much would be saved in costs if school choice were eliminated.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 8:51 AM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
The busing issue, actually, the entire scholl department budget issue, is out of control. Someone needs to take control of this mess and if the Superintendent is not going to do it, then the school committee needs to do it. If school choice is costing us a bunch of money we do not have, and requiring parents to come up with money they don’t have to pay for busing their kids, then why don’t we stop doing this? School choice is not a requirment, it is a luxury, and in this economy luxuries are just not something most of us can afford.
If you want to settle the busing issue in Framingham then you should be running for selectman, not state rep. I like what I hear you say, but what are you going to be able to do as state rep to help the town of Framingham? The last rep didn’t do anything worthwhile for this town, what are you going to do that is different than that?
Have them walk.
Obsesity will kill more of them than any maurander if you don't.
The only reason we even speak of busing issues comes from the lack of school funding, a major concern for parents.
Some move here because of the costs of housing, some, for the proximity to work and highways and the trains, and many move here for the schools and test scores.
Education is the answer to solving many of our social and economic problems. Requiring kids to walk or provide their own transportation, or pay extra to ride a bus may be for now the only option, but it certainly has disrupted hundreds of parents lives, puts an unfair financial burden on some, creates major traffic jams around schools and above all, risks the safety of our children.
The article before TM next week asks to restore 270,000 for a few more buses, but as we learned last night, the School Committee will not support it.
I've written in the past that I propose cutting State expenses enough to level fund our schools, scrap most MCAS requirements, bring back all music and phys ed programs. There's at at least a billion dollars of waste and fraud in our state budget that could be used to pay for K-12 education.
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