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How crazy is the Department of Education? Since the DOE eliminated 116 of 2,516 bus routes, students and parents were thrown into chaos. Here are some examples of what happened:
- 6 year old Jenny Gao was given a Metrocard to take a city bus - her 5 year old brother got nothing (somehow, a 6 year old can take a city bus, but a 5 year old...)
- Siblings who go to the same school being told to go to bus stops a mile apart (they would also be dropped off at different locations an hour later than usual)
- 7 year old Joseph Merizalde who would have had to take three city buses (not to mention crossing a 6 lane highway) to get to school in the Bronx
- An 11 year old whose bus was supposed to come at 8:18AM - 18 minutes after school starts
The savings from the bus route cuts is about $12 million; Mayor Bloomberg said, “What we’re trying to do is have bus routes where the kids need them and not to pay bus companies for routes where the kids don’t. But we only have a certain amount of money in this city, and if you want to make sure that your monies are well spent and that we help those we can, it requires looking at programs and seeing whether they are effective."
Okay, we totally get that the city wants to save money where it can. But we're talking about kids, their education, and the city having a $3.9 billion surplus. We think the DOE could have handled the bus route changes a lot better.
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I can't believe the city would do something as insane as this. Bloomberg who is so pro education has completely dropped the ball on this issue. Giving a six year old a metrocard? Are you kidding me???? This is an outrage. This city is completely out of control in what it costs to live here and working parents just do not have the time to take their kids to school and be expected to make it to work on time. This is first and foremost a security issue for the well being of this city's children. You can get locked up for leaving a kid alone and now the mayor is saying put them on a city bus with potential child molestors, unreal.
I can see where Mayor Bloomberg is coming from. I mean seriously, why can't parents have their drivers shuttle mom and the wee ones back and forth in the Range Rover like they do at the 92nd St. Y? That's how his neighbors roll. Instead, they want the city to provide door-to-within-20-blocks service. What are they, communists?
I got a couple more examples of my own:
My 5 year old's bus change now means that her morning commute is an hour---for a school that is less than 2 miles away.
A schoolmate of hers must get on another bus a 1/2 hour earlier than before---only to arrive at the school before it even opens (classes start 1/2 after that).
Hire a private consulting firm to manage city contracts with bus drivers and this is what you get. Mind bogggling mismanagement.
absolutely shameful, hopefully everyone talking about this will do some good. I went to Catholic school in NJ k through 12 and in high school there was a lot of busing BS because most districts bused kids to our school then turned the buses around to do their public school runs. Unfortunately, this meant that those districts' students were catching inordinately early buses and arriving at school way too early (as in one of the comments above, sometimes before the building was open). When people tried to complain, the districts acted as if they were doing my schoolmates a favor (even though they were legally obligated to provide transportation) and as if my schoolmates were drains on their resources (even though their parents paid the same property taxes that provide NJ school funding).
My point, is that they did not try to find a solution and I hope that is not the case here.
as a teacher who considers herself not to be as jaded as many of her coworkers, i can officially declare to you that joel klein is a complete and total asshat.
not to mention bloomberg and bush, but i don't even want to get into it.
bloomberg once again shows his
immense contempt for the poor, working and middle class of this city by putting his stamp on such a disastrous plan.
I hope he remembers who is responsible when the first 6 year old gets lost trying to navigate the MTA bus system.