BREAKING – FIRST REPORT: Courtesy Busing Tentatively Restored for All of Lakewood’s Students

The courtesy busing that was removed for thousands of school students in Lakewood for the 2014-2015 school year has been tentatively restored, clifton avenue busing tlsTLS has learned.

The news comes after weeks of tireless efforts and cooperation between representatives of all the Lakewood Mosdos, local Askonim – namely Rabbi Moshe Zev Weisberg and Committeeman Meir Lichtenstein – and District and State officials, including BOE President Isaac Zlatkin and Assemblyman Gary Schaer.

The agreement, which is tentative at this time, was presented as a pilot program for the coming school year for the six largest schools in Lakewood (three boys schools and three girls schools). The plan envision envisions staggering opening times to enable bus drivers to perform two routes instead of a single route, Rabbi Moshe Zev Weisberg tells TLS.

As a result, because of the required turnaround time, boys school openings will be slightly pushed up, and girls opening times slightly pushed back. Schools not partaking in this pilot program will not be affected. However, student from all schools will still receive busing.

Also as a result, no route will be longer thank approximately 30 minutes, says Rabbi Weisberg.

Officials believe that the program’s efficiency will pay for itself. However, should there still be a financial gap, Lakewood has the backing of the state.

“Should the plan be executed as planned, parents and schools could be assured that we have the green light to continue the program throughout the year, without any interference,” says Rabbi Weisberg. “It won’t be stopped in middle of the year.”

If in fact the pilot is successful in increasing cost-effectiveness, without harming the Chinuch of our children, this model could be extended to all Lakewood’s Mosdos in future years, says Rabbi Weisberg.

Last month, after the confirmation of the loss of busing for students from 4th grade and up, and upon the subsequent suggestion of Askonim, thousands of private school students took part in a 2-day carpool drill, which demonstrated what a bottle-necked town could look like on any given morning.

“It made tremendous impact on the state,” says Rabbi Weisberg.

Once the program is implemented, Askonim and officials will reconvene in November to determine if the pilot program is working as expected
and if it should be extended to the rest of Lakewood’s schools.

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19 COMMENTS

  1. This is great news. I just hope the boys day finishes earlier cuz it’s long enough as it is.
    When will we get details?
    Thank you. Thank you.

  2. Whew ! Thanx to all the askanim who worked on our behalf. Im glad we all have a clear idea of what will be happening come Sept.

  3. Whoever wrote the article left me confused as to how many schools will have their students participate in the busing agreement. Is it only 6 schools? Or is it more? When will the other schools be able to have their students included in the transportation?

    Can someone either rewrite the post or provide clarification?

  4. So what about the public schools? Do all the public school kids that are entitled to bussing have bussing again?

  5. Still doesn’t make sense to me. Other “private” schools of this area have the busing built into the tuition or the parents are responsible for the transportation. Why is this town so different?????

  6. To all the confused!
    Everyone will receive bussing at the same time that they will try a new idea of staggering the openings times to see if it will help the runs. Therefor six school will try either earlier or later opening and if that is successful without harming the chinuch then all school will stagger open time…..yet even while this trial is being run all schools will receive bussing..

  7. BH I noticed that there are only 17 confused comments it seems our brothers in israel have given us clarity on priorities. May we continue to view this world as a proizdor.

Comments are closed.