Late bus cuts still anger parents

A budget cut passed by the Sewanhaka Central High School District back in May still has parents up in arms, and has led to contentious school board meetings and threats of disruption from irate residents.

At a Sewanhaka school board meeting on Sept. 22, more than a dozen angry parents voiced their displeasure at the cut, which was included in the budget as a cost-saving measure. Many more parents made their opinions known over the summer: The small meeting room was often packed with more than 100 people, all addressing the board, until the meetings had to be closed late in the evening because they were lasting more than three hours.

At issue is the district’s loss of late bus service. The cut has affected not only students who participate in extracurriculars at district schools, but district students who attend private or parochial schools with later starting and ending times.

One parent, Angela Cannella, who sends her twin sophomore girls to Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale, said she can’t believe the district would disregard the safety of students to save money in the budget. “Without a late bus, you’re putting children in jeopardy,” Cannella said. “Now, when it’s dark out, you’re putting these kids on the street, or telling them to ride the Hempstead Turnpike bus? It just doesn’t make sense.”

Before the school year began, the school board arranged for bus service — paid for by parents whose children needed it — that serviced Kellenberg, Holy Trinity in Hicksville and Sacred Heart in Hempstead. The cost to parents was over $325 per student for the year.

Cannella said that is cold comfort for someone who has paid taxes in the district for more than two decades. “How much have I paid for the last 22 years in school taxes, and now I have to pay for the bus?” she said. “Just because we choose to send our kids to Catholic schools doesn’t mean we’re richer than someone else — it doesn’t mean we can afford [to pay for transportation].”

Cannella explained that her daughters have cheerleading practice four days a week at Kellenberg, and could not possibly make it home any other way.

Many parents were made aware of the loss of the late bus service only a day before the budget vote in May, and according to some, there was a miscommunication among residents about what a “no” vote on the budget meant. “A lot of people thought that they had to pass that budget or they’d lose the late buses, when that wasn’t the case,” Cannella said.

For its part, the board insisted that tough choices had to be made in a budget that had its smallest increase in 15 years. “The development of our 2009-10 budget involved agonizing decisions and painful cuts to a number of the programs and services we previously provided,” Sewanhaka Superintendent Warren Meierdiercks wrote in a letter to parents over the summer. “All children in all schools will be influenced by the economic reality we now face.”

Meierdiercks and his colleagues on the board repeated that explanation at the Sept. 22 meeting, saying that despite what the angry parents may think, their complaints weren’t falling on deaf ears.

Cannella said that the parents’ current demands are simple: restore the late bus service in next year’s school budget, if not sooner, or parents will band together to vote it down. “People are enraged about it,” she said. “Everyone knows budgets. There’s always room, always money available — we’re not talking about a lot of money.”

For the time being, however, parents who send their children to private schools, or those whose children take part in after-school activities, have to make some difficult choices of their own.

Comments about this story? MHampton @liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 214.