Update - August 26, 2024
The School Committee will be announcing at its virtual meeting on Tuesday that we have been able to secure busing for all students who signed up for bus transportation by the June 28, 2024 deadline. This includes the 150 secondary students who initially did not receive bus transportation when the bus lists were finalized a couple of weeks ago. Please click here for more information.
Update - August 22, 2024:
Earlier this week, we hosted a virtual forum where Dr. Baeta provided an update on the busing situation and also heard directly from parents/families. More than 50 parents attended the virtual forum and we appreciated being able to hear their concerns, as well their personal situations as it related to busing. The district continues to review the bus lists for any discrepancies and will work to make sure as many students receive bus transportation as possible. We will be providing families a further update about bus transportation by the middle of next week and appreciate your patience.
August 16, 2024
Dear SPS families,
Finalizing the bus routes and the list of students riding the bus is one of the signs the start of the school year is near. Unfortunately, for the upcoming 2024-2025 school year, 150 secondary students who signed up to ride a bus were not able to be placed on a bus. Those families not receiving bus transportation were notified this week. Those receiving bus transportation will receive their bus postcards the week of August 19. We understand the feelings of disappointment and frustration this caused for the families who did not receive bus transportation. We feel it is important to explain this situation to all of our families to allow you to better understand how we arrived at this point.
● The bus application period opened on May 20, 2024 and closed June 28, 2024. No applications were accepted after June 28th. Students were placed on the bus in the order the applications were received. During the application period, 1,529 students applied for bus transportation. This represents an increase of 162 from the 1,367 applications we received the year before.
● For the 2024-2025 school year, we received 771 applications from students in grades K-5 and all 771 were placed on a bus. We received 456 applications from students in grades 6-8 and were able to place 381 on a bus (representing 84% of OMS applicants). Finally, we received 453 applications from students in grades 9-12 and were able to place 378 on a bus (representing 84% of SHS applicants).
● Four (4) seats on each bus are left available to allow students who move to Stoughton over the summer the opportunity to receive bus transportation. These seats have been filled.
● Our district’s transportation policy states that elementary students living within a 0.25 mile distance of their school and secondary students living within a 0.5 mile distance of their school are not eligible for bus transportation. The district also follows the state requirement to provide transportation for students in grades K-6 who live more than 2 miles from their school (provided they apply by the application deadline). There is no requirement for providing transportation for students in grades 7-12.
● Despite the increase in demand for bus transportation, we have one less bus than we did last school year. Last year we were able to have 14 buses, but due to budgetary constraints, we are only able to have 13 buses this school year. You may have read that we received a 7.1% increase in our budget for FY25. This is true, but this increase still did not allow us to have a level-service budget, meaning we made cuts for supplies and even cuts in staffing, in addition to having to cut one bus.
● There is no cost for students to ride the bus for this upcoming school year. But keep in mind that even when the district did charge for busing, the fees collected only funded a portion of the cost to provide transportation and the balance of the cost was funded by the operational budget.
● The district has two buses for students living in hotels/shelters. We are required to provide transportation for these students. These two buses are in addition to the 13 buses for the students not in hotels/shelters. We are utilizing funding the state provides to the district to bus the students living in hotels/shelters. The funding for these two buses does not come from our operational budget. It is inaccurate to suggest that these children receiving busing is the reason yours did not. If we were not receiving the funding from the state for the students living in hotels/shelters, we would not be able to have these two additional buses.
At this point, we are limited in what we can do to provide additional busing. In addition, there is a shortage of bus drivers. That being said, we continue to review the bus lists for any discrepancies.
If you have further questions, we will be holding a virtual forum on Monday, August 19 from 6-7pm to discuss bus transportation. You can use this link to join the virtual forum.
Thank you for understanding and we are looking forward to the start of the school year.
Sincerely,
Joseph F. Baeta, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
Stoughton Public Schools