CBA, RBC Parents Meeting Thursday To Discuss Brick Busing Issue

Frustrated parents whose children attend Red Bank Catholic and Christian Brothers Academy have scheduled a meeting for Thursday to discuss their options now that the Brick Township School District has notified them that busing will not be provided for those students this coming school year.

Families of those students received letters over the weekend notifying them that the busing would not be provided, with some families being told they will receive a stipend instead -- a situation that has them up at arms.

The meeting for interested parents is at 6 p.m. at the Herbertsville Volunteer Fire Company, 500 Herbertsville Road.

Part of the issue, parents who contacted the Patch said, is that they were notified so close to the beginning of the school year.

“They dumped this in our lap four weeks before school,” said one woman, who asked not to be identified. “We’ve already started paying tuition.”

But parents also are angry because, they say, the busing to the two schools has been in place for several years. They also said they feel singled out because the district will continue to bus students to the Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science in Stafford Township.

“MATES is 32.7 miles door to door,” the woman said. “I don’t understand why the five kids who go there get busing and my son won’t.”

Richard Caldes, the interim superintendent of the Brick school district, said he wished parents could have been notified sooner as well, but the district had until Aug. -- the date of the letter -- to alert parents that busing would no longer be provided.

Under state law, a school district must provide busing for remote students, who are defined as students who live more than 2 miles from their elementary school or more than 2-1/2 miles from their high school. A district also must provide busing for special needs students, and for preschool students who meet certain criteria, according to the state Department of Education website.

State law also mandates busing for students who are enrolled in their county’s vocational technical school. MATES is part of the Ocean County Vocational Technical School system.

But for students who attend private, charter or Choice schools, the rules are different. Public school districts that bus students to schools must either provide a bus or aid (money) in lieu of the busing for students who attend a private school that is within 20 miles of their home, according to the law.

There’s a catch, however: the cost of transporting those nonpublic students cannot exceed the maximum amount set by the state per pupil for the transportation of those students. That amount is set at $884, according to the Department of Education.

Caldes said that is what has happened with the bus for CBA and RBC students.

“When we sent the routes out to MOESC (the Monmouth Ocean Educational Services Commission), no one bid on the route,” said Caldes, who said the route would have transported 12 students this year. When the district looked at operating the route itself, the cost per student exceeded the $884, he said. He declined to cite the exact amount, saying only that the difference was significant.

Jill Rivieccio, whose daughter is a junior at RBC this fall, said the bus had more than 12 students and would have had more than 12 this year as well.

“It’s a full bus,” she said.

Caldes acknowledged being aware that the bus had carried more students in the past, but said that of the students on the bus last year, only 22 of them actually qualified for that busing. The others, he said, should not have been on the bus.

“We are doing things by the code,” he said, referring to the state code N.J.A.C. 6A:27 – 1.2 and 1.3, which spells out all of the rules surrounding transporting students.

And under that code, many of the students who live in Brick are ineligible for busing to RBC and CBA, because they live more than 20 miles from those schools.

“That makes no sense,” one mother said. “Just because they live on the far side of tow they’re not eligible. But they’re in the same town.”

“They can bus the kids to MATES and that’s 32.7 miles, but they can’t bus our kids? It’s a moral issue,” she said. “We were driving our kids to the Herbertsville firehouse to get the bus, so it wasn’t traveling more than 20 miles for any of our children. But MATES kids still get busing. It’s wrong.”

Also wrong, parents said, was the attitude and implication of many, that the parents whose children are attending these schools are wealthy and should be able to handle the added expense.

“I scrimp and save to do this,” said Rivieccio, who was angry about the treatment she received from district personnel who answered the phones, whom she said were nasty to her. “I don’t like being told that I should have the money (to take care of the transportation issue). I don’t like the fact that everyone things we have money.”

“I’m a single parent,” a third woman said. ”I save up the money for my child to attend. This (the lack of busing) is going to be a hardship. I will have to take off work to get my daughter to school.”

Two mothers said the district should be appreciative of the fact that their children are going to school elsewhere.

“We’re saving the town money by not sending our children to the schools here. If we all sent our kids here, it would cause them all kinds of problems.”

“They can provide a bus for afterschool activities, and they can provide a late bus, but they can’t come up with one to get 54 children to RBC and CBA?” Rivieccio said.

“They’re saving $40,000,” one mother said. “That’s it. They can’t find $40,000 elsewhere?”