Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
CASD WON’T ALTER ITS BUS ROUTES
Proposed plan included pickups for students as early as 5:30 a.m.
COATESVILLE » Outrage over a plan to alter school bus pickup times to as early as 5:30 a.m. in Coatesville has caught the attention of school administrators, who have decided to scrap the plan.
Parents of students utilizing the Coatesville Area School District transportation system last week started a petition saying the new bus arrival times slated to go into effect Monday were unreasonable.
Adriana DeNinno, whose two children go to Pope John Paul II School in West Brandywine, said she received notice last week that pickup time will be 6:10 a.m. It had been 7:55 a.m.
“I have a child in kindergarten and one if first grade,” she said. “I live five minutes from
school. They would be on that bus for two full hours because school starts at 8:10 a.m. It’s child abuse, that’s what it is.”
DeNino started a petition at Change.org and as of Friday afternoon, it had 689 signatures.
Charlene Lewis, who lives on Martin’s Corner Road only 10 minutes from school, got the letter from the Coatesville Area School District transportation department instructing her to get her child on the bus at 5:34 a.m.
“This is absolutely terrible,” Lewis said. “How could they think so carelessly about my children to send me a letter asking me to get my child on a bus at 5:35 in the morning? I have no faith in Coatesville (school administrators) and I think the school district is the pits.”
Lewis said the pickup times are unreasonable, as she and her husband both work shift work and rely on the buses.
“In order for my children to get the recommended amount of sleep recommended by the Academy of Pediatrics, I would have to put them in bed at 5 p.m.,” she said.
The move was a cost-saving one, spurred by the pandemic limiting the number of students permitted on the bus. Coatesville school directors voted last school year to save costs by reducing the number of buses it would require as part of its transportation contract. Coatesville Area School District reduced the vehicles by 15 at an annual savings of $750,000.
This cost savings enabled CASD to avoid imposing a tax increase to taxpayers. Last year, the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials conducted a transportation audit of the district and recommended reducing the vehicles used by the district by 50.
Parents had received a letter, which stated in part:
“A change this year to the transportation is that all high school/middle school students will be transferring from their home bus to a transfer bus at a designated transfer point in the morning only,” the letter stated. “Your student will need to locate their school’s shuttle bus to receive transportation to their school. Each shuttle bus will have the school shuttle name in the first window on the passenger side of the bus. At times, dismissal from schools may not occur as rapidly as we would like. Due to this possible delay, please be patient as the dismissal buses may need time at the schools to receive their students during dismissal. The below dropoff time is the best approximate time we can provide.”
On Friday, Thomas Hanna, Coatesville Area School District superintendent, said a decision was made to keep the original bus schedules.
“We are restoring your child’s original bus routes,” Hanna said in the letter to parents. “You can ignore any notification you received about changes to your child’s busing. Schedules will continue as they have been since the start of the school year.”
It went on to state: “The district makes bus stops with the students’ safety in mind, and all bus stop assignments cannot be customized to meet every individual need and still be part of an efficient and economical transportation system.”
Lewis said the plan was flawed from the start, as many of the younger children, in first or second
grade, would have difficulty navigating the process of getting off a bus and getting back on another bus to get to school.
“How can I expect my kindergartner to go to another school and figure out what bus to get on to get to school,” Lewis said
“Some of our children already sit too long on buses,” said Denise Souders, who signed the petition. “It is horrible for our children to sit so
long and now with COVID it is sickening. I pay large amounts at tax time and still have to drive her so she is not on her bus for so long.”
“Our School District and Board will continue to consider cost savings in the future that may include transportation,” Hanna said. “However, we are committed to thoroughly communicating any changes that will impact students in timely manner moving forward.”