There is a proposition added to the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School District’s upcoming Annual Budget and Election Vote on May 18. It asks residents to vote on whether or not the minimum distance away from the school that is used to qualify families for receiving district-provided transportation should be increased.
It is currently at over one mile, and the proposition seeks to increase it to one and a half miles away. I believe this extension of the minimum distance away from one’s school required for bussing to be a good-intentioned but ultimately shortsighted idea. I believe we residents should vote no to this proposition for a few reasons.
Families will be affected. My family doesn’t currently qualify for a bus, but my son has classmates who do. A school bus is an integral part of a working family’s day, and while some of us had flexible hours and worked from home during the pandemic, many didn’t, and many more will have to return to figuring out how their children will get to school safely without district-provided transportation.
I’m wondering if a committee of stakeholders including families who will be impacted was established before the proposition was put forth and also how word gets out to the community about these major shifts other than School Board meetings, which seem to be not well attended.
The idea is to save money, of course, but according to a recent article in Newsday, Long Island schools are going to receive a $3.6 billion bump due to a surplus this year. We should be adding to the programs and services we have and not taking away from them, especially considering the taxes we pay. Additionally, if we read the school board presentations, we notice that the amount saved does not equal the services lost.
Many other school districts in the area provide transportation for their elementary school-aged kids (particularly K-4) who live a half-mile away or three-quarters of a mile away, which sounds much more accommodating and family-friendly than the increase in our proposition.
Bussing is a vital part of a school experience. In many ways, it’s a rite of passage for those of us who have experienced it. The yellow school bus holds a special place in our memories and is emblazoned in songs and culture. It’s just as much part of the idea of schooling as are teachers, textbooks, and tests.
What is the rhetorical purpose of asserting a phrase like “We are not a bussing district,” which has been used a lot in recent conversations by those who support a virtual elimination of bussing for our students, if not to sway thinking away from this very fundamental definition of a school and of how an education should serve a community itself.
What would be better than ambiguous declaratory statements that attempt to assert something over and over again so that people believe it is to understand that there is a significant enough portion of the population who gets transportation and another portion who would want it and use it if they knew it was possible.
What would be better is I see you, I hear you, I will serve your needs and the needs of our children. District elected officials may cite numbers about many kids using costly bussing to go out of district to private schools, but to them, I ask why are families who are using the public schools being punished for the families in the district who aren’t…and why are these families looking elsewhere for the education of their children in the first place?
Right now, the New Hyde Park Road School is the building that uses district-provided transportation the most, but the time may be upon us that we become a “bussing” district. Every parent I’ve spoken to whose kids have moved through the district agrees that, indeed, it would have been easier and less frenetic to utilize our tax dollars for district transportation rather than figure out costly ways to get their kids to school safely.
We have a vibrant and thriving business corridor in Jericho Turnpike that gets incredibly busy and swarms with traffic in the mornings and afternoons. People are coming from all around purchasing homes in the area for its proximity to the city and new rail systems and a host of other reasons.
This is not the sleepy suburb or more rural community center where busses are not a priority. Parents work and work hard. Figuring it out without the district’s attention to this matter should not be the only option. The time may be upon us that we become a bussing district, and the first motion towards that is to vote no on Proposition No. 3 on May 18.
Alan Semerdjian
New Hyde Park
Alan Semerdian is a local educator, writer, musician, and parent of a kindergartener in the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Union Free School District.
