Submitted: To whom it may concern,
My daughters are in high school and my boys are in elementary. Of their 8 runs I am missing 5.
My minyan morning bus does not have a driver assigned to the run. We wait everyday from 6:40 hoping for someone to show. Most days nobody comes so I drive him.
The yeshiva has staggered dismissal. One child’s dismissal is at 4:30, he gets home after 6 pm. The next son’s ride home is close to that long as well.
I have reached out last year to LSTA regarding the length of one of the runs and after a few months of calling and going down multiple times they finally divided the route, I was very grateful. This year we once again have the same issue. How long does a run need to be for it to be considered illegal? I have called my bus companies, LSTA, my school but to no avail. I’ve been told to be patient – I would love to be but I don’t have that capacity at this point to tolerate the zero accountability. I am struggling to keep my job so that my tuition and taxes can be paid on time. A struggle it is because I carpool a few times a day, absorbing runs that has had money allotted for each of my children. As a Lakewood resident, and taxpayer, I am legally entitled to receive transportation for my children.
The universal definition of bus transportation is getting a child to and from school on time and safely.
Assigning a run that takes an hour and a half is unacceptable. Picking up children an hour after school is dismissed isn’t assigning the run. If a bus company is not able to fulfill its end of the contract, let them admit it, and allow the route to be reassigned. If it’s too hard to get the routes assigned please give us parents that monetary allowance and we will take care of it on our own.
However, the current situation, as it’s been, is not able to continue, and I am committed to doing everything in my power and contacting any and all entities who can assist me in having this corrected, immediately.
An Exhausted Mother
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ultimately traffic congestion is the root of this issue😢
There are kids on routes that shouldn’t be getting a stop. They live too close to school. Something tells me they’re related or friends of Mr. (moderated). There’s no reason a (moderated) bus is making stops in (moderated). Even if it only takes less than 10 min extra. Do they realize that there are girls on the bus for an hour or more each day. So yes every xtra min is too long. The route of that bus doesn’t even make sense. It goes to Albert the woods rain tree and many other areas on the way.
Agree 100%
The schools should get the money meant for the bussing and have their own busses and heimishe drivers. That would be be the best solution
Trust me, if the school is running your busing, it will not be good. Any school tried it. Second of all, if the school is not gonna make a cut off it, then ink gonna do it takes a lot of time, resources, and extra money to run these runs
Thank you for this letter. I live in Jackson so I do not have mandated busing. However I opted in to busing for my children as per their schools request (as they don’t want dozens of carpools and vans) and have to pay $880 out of pocket in addition to aid in leu for one child, and $680 out of pocket for the rest. I have bus stops over a mile from my house, and children that get picked up at 730 am for school that starts at 9. Obviously had I know this in advance I would not have opted in, but only found this out the night before school started. I am wondering the same, where is the accountability. The school says there’s nothing to be done and the LSTA says to be patient. This is not sustainable.
Agreed, my girls high school bus comes close to an hour after school is over. The day is long as it is. AND I’m paying for this….
There should be a limit of up to 45 min on the bus, for the longest kid. Beyond that is just too torturous. Especially in the warmer months with no A/C. Too often kids get into fights or other trouble when they simply can’t sit still anymore. (Besides for the bathrooms etc.)
When I was a kid I was often the first pick up and the last drop off. I was on the bus for an hour to an hour and half. It was so horrible, I still have traumas from those days. As soon as my parents let me walk to school, I started walking the 45 min trek whenever it wasn’t raining, just to avoid it.
But the bus companies know about the traffic. It’s been bad for a long time. The can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. They have to work their schedules with that in mind. Just like I have to keep traffic in mind when I want to be on time to an appointment
I don’t understand why It got so much worse
Congestion, congestion, congestion…..
I feel for you! My primary daughter comes home after the high school girls busses! She sits on the bus for about an hour! When she comes home from school and it’s time for pajamas she’s a little confused as to why she has no unwinding time! Also they’re so little and with all this waiting she comes home plotzing for the bathroom!!
The problems are partly due to LSTA absorbing bus funds from Toms River this year. They don’t have the capacity to bus that many kids and the bus companies have the choice on whether the route aligns with their financial goals for their busses. Families who are now newly “absorbed” into the LSTA system have to pay I think $80 per child as well. The private vans are even worse with monthly costs approaching a tuition payment in many cases. The whole system is broken.
Exactly. As a Toms River parent, I can attest to this. I have to help my kids cross a busy road (Whitesville) and walk 2 blocks to their bus stop. I don’t mind that my 2 older ones in 6th and 8th grade do it, but this is also for my 1st and 3rd graders as well! Last year when it went through Toms River, I didn’t have to pay $80 for each kid, and the stop was in front of my house. It’s insane.
I work for bussing for a Heimishe school, we have our own buses, I’m in contact with jays everyday, we are begging them to give us routes, we have many empty slots in the morning and in the afternoon that we are looking to fill, they are refusing to give us any routes, and I know of at least 6 other private school who are begging them for routes they don’t want to give out routes this year, even though they know that they cannot handle it and it’s a total mess up.
I know of a school that is officially starting 8:45 they don’t have a single bus coming in before 9:50
I forgot to mention that last year jays and presidential gave out hundreds of routes to private school who has their own buses to help them fulfill their routes, since jays and presidential merged a few months ago they decided not to give out any route, I know personal alot of drivers that are sitting empty during the day and looking for routes.
if anyone needs proof they could call satmar, klausenburg, belz, Rachmistrivka, Stolin, mesoras uvos, beis hachinuch and I could give you much more names that are looking to fulfill their routes and jays refuses.
Im on the road as well with a bus, Traffic is not the issue…
My kids bus pass says presidential but they have a Belz bus. I’m not sure how that tracks with what’s being claimed here… But it was confusing the first day since we were looking for the wrong kind of bus…
If this is true… it is scandalous and reprehensible!!!! What a perfect resolution this could be!
@tls, can you please connect me with Shea?
Wow! Is this accurate? TLS please investigate! We deserve to know the truth.
Kids that live close to school, i.e. a block away, are getting picked up by LSTA bussing for a small non-mandated fee, yet we who live far away did not get picked up for bussing and are paying $3000 for private transportation. Get bussing to the kids who need it /are mandated first!
kids that live less than half a mile to school do NOT get bussing for nothing in the world even if they are crossing very dangerous busy streets.
Since Lsta took over bussing things have changed. I know they mean well, but the money is for mandated bussing. You can’t fit the whole town to benefit. My primary son stop is 3 blocks from my house, and my minyan son never got a stop! Bussing is for those that live more than 2 miles from school. Now the buses have 4 runs in the morning to fit into the budget. It’s not fair to all the kids that sit so long either on buses or get dropped off at school so early because the driver has to fit in another run
I believe the first comment sums it all up.. nobody really took into consideration the fact that if you put thousands of cars on roads…. with no substantial expansion of the roads…. traffic will be impossible… buses will not be able to get through to get to the stops and then ultimately to the schools back and forth…. with any kind of realistic timeline….
Well, think about whose fault it is for the long bus runs. A number of years ago the town offered a large piece of land near the stadium for all of your schools to be built. You could have had 2 schools, 1 boys, 1 girls, grades K-8. Another 2 schools, 1 boys, 1 girls, for grades 9-12. That’s 4 huge schools, and you would only have to pay 4 principals, not the many principals you have in the individual schools scattered all over town. Everyone would pay the same tuition rate depending on which school their kids attend. Buses would pick up ALL kids, grades K-12, on their route ending at the school complex. You would not have 5 different buses going on the same street picking up 15 kids going to different schools. Therein lies all your traffic problems. Why do kids have 90 minute bus runs when the town is only 5 miles across?
If there was only two schools the schools would be the size of a large collage.
Follow the money! LSTA is funded by our mandated money and taxes. It should be audited… but its not.
No accountability on millions of dollars
Happens to be it is audited by the state…
Oh, the State
– Both my boys and girls are on the bus for close to 2 hours – what is legal?
– my primary child (4yr old) has gotten home after 6pm!
– my boys still don’t have a consistent bus driver
– on occasion the bus just doesn’t show
– my children’s route have bus stops including areas of West Gate, S. Lake drive , forest Ave, Raintree, Rt 88, Ridge, Coventry – please explain how such a route makes any sense ( of course the 2 hr bus ride makes sense now)
– They keep switching my childrens route in my neighborhood from picking them up first to picking them up last creating a discrepancy of a half hour for pick up time – how in the world should we know what time to be out for the bus?
– because they keep switching the route some days my children need to cross an extremely busy street – not legal!
– my children have drivers who curse at them and call them horrendous names
– they gave one of my children a stop that’s a 5 min drive from our house
I live in Lakewood.
This is just my family alone…. My list isn’t finished yet, but I’m too busy driving my kids to spend more time writing it out… I’m sure every family can write their own list.
Every year this situation is bad, but this year is far worse then ever before.
Where is accountability?
– oh, also, both my girls and boys say there are not enough seats on the bus for all the kids
– my children have also gotten to school 20 min late on numerous occasions
Congestion in town may aggravate the situation, but it is not the root cause.
My children get to school late very single day because the bus is still in Jackson by 8:35.
On the way home, the bus has not gotten to school yet before 4:30 when they end at 4.
There are many neighbors who need to drive their children to the bus stop in the morning as the stop is no longer on their corner.
This system is unstainable. We need more private bus companies taking routes.
One bus company should not be allowed to have a monopoly in a town with this number of children.
it is 100% not congestion. I am actively involved in bussing for a PRIVATE route and can attest that one bus company is mafia controlling the market with zero accountability or common sense. Routes being created with zero calculation causing longer route times that are completely unnecessary. Zero communication. This is a private route that parents are paying out of pocket for. I can only imagine an LSTA route.
Parents will not tolerate this anymore. Bus companies cannot mafia-control the town. They cannot twist us into a pretzel.
Again we are a private route, paying out of pocket and given a senseless route. We beg, we ask for normal stops and then find out that they added 2 LSTA stops to our route with the bus DRIVING 10-15 LONGER because he was given the dumbest, slowest, most congested way to get to those stops. So the private paying parents shell out money and deal with this.
Those “in charge” cannot even give me answer to who concocted such idiocy.
The only leverage is $$$ and once the LSTA is involved, you are done. No more aid in lieu to even contemplate private transportation.
Don’t tell me it’s congestion. It’s selfishness. It’s incompetence. It’s mafia-style. And boils down to $$. Where is the Agudah? the askanim?
They say we should be grateful for bussing….
Allocate the funds to me for my children, and I will figure out a way to get my children to school in a timely and safe manner….
Considering how much time I spend driving instead of at work….
But thank goodness we have the LSTA!!
Does anyone know if the LSTA is subject to OPRA?
We all know the obvious solution, just most school admins don’t feel the pressure to do it.
GET YOUR OWN BUSES!
I send my kids to one of the chasidish schools in town, the bus arrives exactly when its supposed to, I know my kids are safe with a driver hired by the school, there are cameras on all the buses, and they are tracked live by the school (and yes! parents have an option to sign up for tracking as well! no smartphone needed)
I really don’t understand why this is not the norm with all schools in this town.
Its about time all these parents that are waiting hours for their kids buses to demand it from their mosdos!
Which school is this , I’d like to call for logistics and details
Where does it say that busses should only serve one school at a time!? Why not service specific areas? This won’t work for some schools, but for instance, there are many schools (boys and girls) in the oak street area. Why not, as an example, have a girls bus pick up in only one area (ie west gate) and then drop them all off at 3 schools that are in the same area. This will fill the bus and avoid driving all over town in a zig zag pattern. It’s not THAT confusing! The kids from multiple schools won’t fight with other kids any more than kids from the same school do now! The way it is now, bus routes that are given are confusing and all over the place, EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT.
Yes!
I have been suggesting this forever!
Bus by neighborhood to several schools in the same area.
My sons minyans bus has 2 schools and my daughters bus has 2 schools. But most often there are many children in the neighborhood going to the school that it’s too many kids to combine
Yes!
Now let’s see how the schools react to that idea.
This idea came up already 1000 times it’s impossible to do.
In Lakewood There are schools that are doing it.
When I was a kid growing up in Lakewood many years ago, all the 14th st kids went on the same bus together to Bais Faiga and the Cheder.
Of course I’m not suggesting mixing the boys and the girls on the same busses in today’s Lakewood, but yes, combining bussing by neighborhood to schools within close proximity may certainly provide a solution.
I agree. This can solve both the bussing and the shidduch crisis.
A significant concern and why there will never be accountability, is that anyone who probes into the doings of any of these “wonderful” organizations get run out of town rather quickly.
Ok, let’s do it your way. LSTA will decide that 20% of the runs are too long, and they can’t be split because there isn’t enough money in a 25-child run. So now instead of one bus, we have 50 parents (or make it 20 parents if they carpool) on the road. Now, traffic is worse, and even more efficient runs are deemed too long. Eventually, the entire Lakewood population will be on the road from morning till night driving their kids.
The system is broken, but it is the best system we have due to the circumstances.
By the way, since people started moving to Jackson and TR, we have thousands of kids from outside Lakewood all traveling exclusively to Lakewood for schooling. So instead of blaming the LSTA and the bus companies, blame the Jackson Township for not approving and expediting schools buildings in their town for their children.
Wasn’t a building just bought for use as a religious school in Jackson? Pretty sure it’s not for Catholic or Christian kids.
the jackson and manchester buses pick up from multiple girls schools on Oak street.
Lakewood routes should be the same.
5 schools literally on exact same block, 10 seconds from each other.
If there are schools that are close together, can’t the boys and girls ride together?
OK again with the Jackson and TR. I’m very tired of it. Many of us live a lot closer to the schools than the Lakewood kids and there is barely any traffic while doing the route. My girls last stop before the bus heads to school is around 9. I am being charged a fortune on top of my aide, without getting a stop near my house since even though the bus is passing us, the company decided to take off the stop. I’m driving my kids to the bus. If I would have known the situation would be like this I would have done carpool and dropped them off on my way to work since many of us work downtown. Yes, I agree, we need to widen Route 88 and the full Clifton. But you must not have kids in school since you don’t see that these routes are starting too late and driving in circles.