Long Yellow Mile? A Conundrum of School Bus Rides

Recently, we collectively tried to scrounge questions to ask U.S. Senate candidates Jeff Bell, Republican, and Cory Booker, incumbent Democrat. The task is not as easy as it sounds. Upon reaching that seat in “The Millionaire’s Club” down on Capitol Hill, the successful candidate is largely above the fray.
Consider it the difference between a classroom teacher and a superintendent of schools. One puts up with juvenile sneezing and tattle-tailing, nasty remarks yelled out when their back is turned, upset tummies and heart-rending reasons why homework didn’t get done. The other contends with union haggling and countless personnel matters, nasty remarks yelled out, and heart-rending reasons why this or that should be changed. One gets a whole lot more pay than the other, but some at the lower end wouldn’t want the other’s job for all the honor roll students in the district.
Senators don’t worry about ordinary things like trash, barking dogs and school bus transportation, pot holes or noisy neighbors. They’re above all that trifling stuff. That’s why there are grassroots levels of government. No sir, senators remain, like those naughty naked pictures of stars and starlets, “in the cloud.” They spend days and nights dealing with lofty matters of state and policy, federal budgets that no ordinary peon can fathom or really cares about, and the balance of power in the upper house. Senators have staffs that handle all incoming calls and mail, snail and electronic, and automatically reply to inquiries from the electorate. They lunch with presidents, play golf with magnates, and come home every six years to beat the bushes for votes so they can return to the district, taxpayer funded, and get going for another six years.
Back to school superintendents, who would want to switch places with Christopher Kobik, Lower Cape May Regional School District’s chief exec? Kobik is a long-time educator, once a Middle Township school employee, who learned from his dad, who was also a Middle Township educator. Recently he found himself facing a group of parents whose children attend Cape Trinity Catholic School. They held a pow-wow because the bus rides their children experienced were long, maybe an hour, to get from places in Lower Township to North Wildwood.
A week earlier, we reported a similar situation with Middle Township schools. Parents got little satisfaction getting an answer about their children’s two-hour bus ride from that municipality to North Wildwood.
Bottom line, it’s all about money. In Lower Township, as parents learned from Kobik, a bus was taken off the route, and that means longer travel time. About the money, he told them the district was paying something over $1,000 a pupil for transport, when state law constrained him to pay no more than about $830 per pupil. The only alternative offered was for the district to pay the parents to take their own children to school, which they said could probably be done in about 15 minutes.
That’s a chore, as any working parent knows. Getting a youngster out of bed, cleaned and clothed, fed and out the door to the bus stop is usually a challenge enough. It’s certainly something to which few superintendents or senators might relate, but those are the facts of life.
Parents, for their part, were willing, and so was Lower Regional District, to look into the possibility of consolidating stops. That could help speed things along, and possibly trim travel time for sleepy boys and girls.
Children, unless they are very unusual, are not known for having great time management skills. If they were, some procrastinating, but wise, lass or lad could turn that longer bus ride into a great time to finish ignored homework. However, we all know school buses are not the place where such scholarly pursuits take place, so an hour on a bus is like a transcontinental flight to an adult, sheer hell on wheels (and bumpy square ones at that). Who has the answer?
It’s none of my business, but since I was told about the untenable situation, I toyed with the notion of asking the bishop of the Diocese of Camden to spring for a bus, or maybe two. He wouldn’t have to actually buy the buses, they could be leased, which is what some school districts do, since school buses have a limited life of 12 years, according to state law. Getting a couple of drivers, and substitutes to drive parochial pupils might strain limited resources unless there could be some volunteer drivers.
Would that be an answer? No, not a good one. Whether buses are church-owned or municipally-owned, time and distance will not change. Townbank Road remains just as far from North Wildwood, where Cape Trinity Catholic School is located, regardless whose bus rolls from house to house.
Here is what the New Jersey Department of Education states:
Q. Are there any limits on nonpublic school transportation?
Yes, there are several limits on nonpublic school transportation. They are:
The school must be a nonprofit school;
The school may be located no more than 20 miles from the student’s home;
The cost of the transportation may not exceed the annual maximum expenditure set by law each year ($884 for the 2014-2015 school year);
Students must be in grades kindergarten through grade 12; and
Students must meet the entrance age requirements for students in the resident public school district.
If the cost of the transportation to be provided to the nonpublic school student will exceed the annual maximum expenditure, the school district cannot provide the transportation but instead pay the student’s parent or legal guardian the maximum expenditure amount. The maximum expenditure for the transportation of nonpublic school students cannot exceed $884 for the 2014-2015 school year.
Now who wants to trade places with the superintendent, or parents, or youngsters who ride those yellow conveyances for long rides every school day? My bet is, not too many.