BOE: New Bus Route Likely for Edison

The parent outrage over inefficient bus routes that leaves students stranded, dropped off in unsafe locations or on the bus for as many as 50 minutes is an issue school officials say can be addressed with an additional bus route going to Edison Intermediate School.

Board of Education member David Finn, who has a daughter in sixth grade that is one of the students on an affected bus route, called a meeting Wednesday afternoon among school and bus officials and parents to address the busing issues.

"It is very likely there will be another bus route going to Edison," Finn said after the meeting in a telephone interview.

The bus routes are being used to transport students from the Washington School neighborhood to Edison. The bus issue has been a matter of debate among Washington parents since students from the neighborhood were moved from Roosevelt to Edison for intermediate school in 2009. Washington parents originally pursued legal action to have a bus route put into effect for the neighborhood and have brought up concerns since then regarding the buses for the neighborhood.

While the exact pattern of the new bus routes still needs to be configured, Finn said the amount of time students spend on the bus will likely lessen with the addition of an extra route.

"As a board member and a district, we should have seen this coming. This is the most complex redistricting busing will ever get," Finn said in reference to the volume of students being bussed this year. "As things get more complex, you don't plan less, you plan more and we didn't do that."

Finn said the board voted Tuesday night authorizing to solicit the county superintendent for emergency relief so the board doesn't have to go out to bid for a new bus. The safety issues involved in the inadequate busing allows the district to accelerate the process with emergency relief, Finn said.

The procurement of the bus is necessary before the bus routes will be positively impacted, he added.

Finn said a parent advisory group is forming to assist the superintendent with reconfiguring the bus routes to make them more efficient and to eliminate all unsafe stops. This reconfiguration could happen as soon as Thursday, Finn said.

Once all the routes are reconfigured, Finn said the district would communicate the changes to parents and the newly procured bus would be put into service.

The timing of the changes depends on when the district obtains its new bus, but Finn said the busing issues could be solved by the last week in September.