Some parents object to West Chester schools' plan to cut busing costs

To save the West Chester Area School District a million dollars a year on transportation, some students will have to start the school day earlier next fall and many will have to walk farther to bus stops.

At one middle school, pupils will ride with high schoolers for the first time.

School board members and administrators defend the changes, approved this week, as needed to conserve money for classroom services. Some parents wonder whether the district is putting financial considerations ahead of children's welfare.

Let the belt-tightening - and the debate over what to cut - begin again.

Even after cutting millions of dollars this school year, the 11,817-student district is projecting a $6 million budget gap for next fiscal year, which will start July 1.

So the board voted unanimously Tuesday to eliminate some buses and fill others closer to capacity. School times were changed, more than 900 bus stops were tentatively eliminated, and some nonpublic-school routes that the district covers were merged with those of public school students. More than 950 children who walk less than a tenth of a mile to a bus stop would have a longer walk under the changes.

Though the outlines were established, details will be reviewed before September, with some tweaks likely, officials said.

The 75-square-mile district gives rides to 11,746 of its own students, 4,313 nonpublic school students, and 383 children going to charter schools. Its rented fleet of 229 buses covers more than three million miles a year, at a projected cost this year of more than $13 million; the state reimburses close to 40 percent.

At Fugett Middle School, more than 300 sixth graders will begin sharing buses with West Chester East High School students. The schools share a campus. Fugett's starting time will be pushed back from 8:05 to 7:30 a.m., when the high school starts, so the same buses can collect pupils for both schools. About 950 students attend Fugett.

The school day at four elementary schools will start and end 20 minutes earlier; at six others, it will start and end 10 minutes later.

At Tuesday's board meeting, several dozen parents who oppose the plan applauded as nine speakers denounced it.

Before the meeting, Dana Rivera, a West Whiteland Township mother of a fifth grader who will attend Fugett next fall, said her 11-year-old son would have to walk close to a half-mile to the newly designated bus stop. She will have to drive him instead, she said.

The change also was "disturbing because of the age difference of the kids riding on the bus," she said. "The conversations that an 11- or 12-year-old might hear from a 17- or 18-year-old - it's not appropriate.

"We have a great school system here, but this puts a negative taste in my mouth. I wonder how much they are thinking about the kids."

Becky Capuzzi, an East Bradford Township mother of 8- and 9-year-old girls who attend Delaware County Christian School's Devon campus, told the board that she was concerned about longer distances driven and transfers from one bus to another in a public parking lot.

Board member Maria Armandi Pimley, whose twin boys attend district elementary schools and will attend Fugett in the future, said the plan had been developed over more than a year after many cost-cutting proposals that would have had a worse impact were rejected. "We're not out to get their kids," she said.

Even with the transportation savings, she said, closing the rest of the budget gap will be difficult, especially since the district has saved more than $7 million this school year.

"We've already cut the low-hanging fruit," she said. "It's not going to be easy."

Superintendent James Scanlon said he understood why parents were upset.

"These are emotional issues," he said. "Is it the right balance between parent concerns and efficiency? It depends on who you're talking to."

But when weighing nonclassroom cuts against cuts in education programs, he said, the choice is clear: "We are really trying to protect the integrity of our classroom instruction. We need to come out of this with that intact."