For RVC family, no bus to Oceanside School No. 5

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A Rockville Centre woman says that Oceanside schools should give her children bus service, but the Oceanside School District says she lives too close to its School No. 5 to qualify.

Tina Huthwaite lives at 92 Seaman Ave. in Rockville Centre, which is in the Oceanside School District. The nearest bus stop is around the corner, at Greenway and Lakeview Avenue.

According to the school district, the distance between Huthwaite’s home and School No. 5 is .72 miles — under the .8-mile minimum for bus service for students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Even when measured from Huthwaite’s driveway to the school’s southernmost driveway, the district said, the route is still shorter than .8 miles.

For students in grades seven to nine, the minimum distance for bus service is 1.2 miles, and those in grades 10 to 12 must live a minimum of three miles away. Those minimum distances were approved by voters, according to the district. New York state mandates maximum distances for bus service.

Huthwaite and her family moved to Rockville Centre last October, and she said she did not realize that her children did not qualify for bus service until they had started school. “When [the Oceanside district] emailed me back that I didn’t fall into bus zoning, I was shocked,” she said.

Huthwaite’s two oldest children, who are 7 and 9, are entering second and fourth grade at School No. 5. She also has a 4-year-old.

She argues that regardless of the distance, the route between her house and the school includes the busy and dangerous Sunrise Highway and Merrick Road. “For anyone to ask those kids to walk over Sunrise Highway is absurd,” she said. “I wasn’t asking them to create a new bus stop for me.”

Last week, she sent a petition to the State Education Department to have the area declared a Child Safety Zone. To determine whether it qualifies, an investigator will inspect the area and assign points for each hazard, including the number of cars per minute on a road, the number of intersections and the size of sidewalks. If a route accumulates enough points, it is categorized as a safety zone, and a district may choose to provide bus service or implement other safety measures.

In the meantime, Huthwaite will drive her children to school, but that may not always be feasible, she said. “I don’t even feel comfortable crossing that road,” she said of Sunrise Highway. “It’s really ridiculous.”

The Oceanside School District declined to comment.