Delayed Bus Schedule Prompts Response From

The School District

By Eliza Hallabeck

As the lone public participation speaker at the Board of Education’s Tuesday, November 16, meeting, resident Laura Roche said as a parent of three children attending three different public schools in Newtown, November has been a long month.

Between early dismissals for conferences and more, Ms Roche said she had at least one child home early for 16 days.

“That said,” Ms Roche told the school board, “last night I get a call that the middle school buses are now going to be delayed a half-hour because of the elementary conferences this week. My question is, why are we getting a call the night before Tuesday, this was Monday, the night before, telling us we are going to have a half-hour delay?”

She received a number of calls from middle school parents who were scrambling to find child care for elementary school students who had been expected to be taken care of by their older middle school aged siblings.

“Parents were caught off guard yet again,” said Ms Roche, “and I just find that frustrating.”

When she spoke to her eighth grade student on Tuesday, November 16, he said students stood outside for that half-hour waiting for their buses.

For the first time, as Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson later said during the meeting, the district decided to stagger conference times at the different schools, because parents in the district had complained in the past of having to chose between which conferences to attend.

“We take ownership for that,” said Dr Robinson. “It’s not working, and we recognize that.”

Member Richard Gaines later suggested the removal of the transportation director during last year’s budget season had an impact on the late notification. The transportation director was first cut from Dr Robinson’s proposed budget, later added back by the Board of Education, and finally removed again at Dr Robinson’s discretion after the central office budget was reduced to reflect budget reductions passed by both the Board of Finance and Legislative Council during the last budget deliberations.

During the final public participation, Ms Roche spoke to Mr Gaines’s statement, by saying the case was not a reflection of budget decisions. She sees the issue as a matter of communication. Blaming the situations on the budget is passing on the blame, Ms Roche said.

In response to the delayed bus schedule, Dr Robinson posted a blog entry, located on the school district’s website at www.newtown.k12.ct.us, on November 22 that read: “As we come to the end of November, I am taking stock of the issues that this month have presented with the conference schedule causing so many shortened days. These days came on top of the shortened first Wednesday and no school on election day and parents were concerned about child care and instructional time.”

According to Dr Robinson’s blog entry, it was the decision of the principals and district administration to stagger the conference times.

“…And lo, we created a new problem,” Dr Robinson wrote. “Our transportation coordinators warned that the buses could not make the schedule and would be late to some schools but unfortunately, we as administrators did not realize the full impact of that and some parents received a late notification of the delayed buses. In past years, additional buses were contracted but our budget no longer allows that. All in all, we allowed several mistakes this month. My apologies to the parents who were inconvenienced. We are discussing just how we can minimize the shortened days when we have night conferences for parents.”

Night conferences cannot be eliminated, she continued, because working parents need a designated time to meet with their son or daughter’s teachers.

Another solution will be found before the spring conferences, Dr Robinson told the school board.

“You have people who have never done this before that are working through this,” said Dr Robinson, speaking of the transportation department without a director of transportation. “I take ownership for the problem, because, being the one who now has to oversee the transportation issue, this was new to me. You have two inexperienced people, who are very capable and competent, but they have not run across this.”

Dr Robinson asked parents to remember that while it was a mistake, the district is working to correct it.

“We are short people. And I know people don’t recognize the people who work behind the scenes,” Dr Robinson said, “but we are short people. And that has an impact.”