By Connor Adams Sheets
Parents of seventh- and eighth-graders at JHS 194 in Whitestone diligently went through the usual back-to-school routines this year: shopping for clothes, getting last-minute haircuts for their little ones and figuring out what bus to expect to pick their children up at the neighborhood stop.
But no amount of preparation could ready those parents for the automated phone calls they received the evening of Sept. 7 — the day before the first day of school — from the school’s principal, Richard Garino, informing them that the familiar yellow buses would not be coming after all under a dictate by the city Department of Education.
Parents of seventh- and eighth-graders at JHS 185 in Flushing also now face the same lack of bus service for the first time. The school and the city Office of Pupil Transportation referred all questions to the DOE, which did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
But David Fischer, chief of staff for state Assemblyman Ed Braunstein (D-Bayside), said the DOE said the city decided not to provide school buses for seventh- and eighth-graders more than a year ago due to budgetary concerns, but students at the two northeast Queens schools had continued to receive service because of a “mistake,” which the DOE corrected this school year.
The issue has incensed College Point parents of JHS 194 students, in particular, due to the lack of public transit options in the area.
On Monday, a cadre of those angry parents and their tired youngsters gathered in front of JHS 194 with elected officials to protest a decision they say endangers kids.
College Point father Darren Kaplan said he received the message about the canceled bus service at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 7 and that he was expected to have his 13-year-old daughter Kate at the school, at 154-60 17th Ave., by 8:05 the next morning.
He said he is one of the luckier parents because he is retired and therefore able to drive his daughter and some other nearby students to class. Many other children have been forced to undertake two-hour-plus commutes on as many as three buses in each direction.
“It left me in a lurch. Eleven-, 12- and 13-year-olds don’t possess the knowledge to know how to navigate or make decisions about riding a bus, let alone the fact that people could take advantage of them,” he said at the rally. “If they had told me two months ahead of time, maybe I could have made arrangements, but they gave us 15 hours.”
There is no simple solution on the horizon, so Braunstein, City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) and Assemblyman Michael Simanowitz (D-Electchester) have taken up the cause.
“Many of these kids have to take two buses to get from College Point to school, and that’s not only an inconvenience, it’s a safety concern,” Halloran told the fired-up crowd. “These kids will be coming home in the dark on city buses, transferring two times. That’s not right.”
Halloran is pushing Mayor Michael Bloomberg to re-evaluate the canceled bus routes, and Braunstein and Simanowitz are backing a bill that has passed the state Senate and is now before an Assembly committee that would require that all third- through eighth-graders who live more than a mile from their schools be provided school bus service.
“We’re calling on Bloomberg and the DOE to make reasonable changes to policy to protect our seventh- and eighth-graders,” Braunstein said. “We’re calling on the mayor and the DOE because this is really a city issue, but if they fail to act we will act in Albany.”
In the meantime, parents whose children cannot safely get to school via public transportation or yellow bus service can apply for safety variances through forms that can be found on the DOE’s website or picked up at the offices of Halloran, Braunstein or Simanowitz.
Reach reporter Connor Adams Sheets by e-mail at csheets@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
