Lakewood, NJ – Officials in a predominantly Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey are working to avert a school bus protest which could clog with streets with hundreds of cars.
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Writing on behalf Iggud Hamosdos, Political activists and dean Rabbi Yisroel Schenkolewski is calling on the parents of private school students to drive their children to classes on Tuesday and Wednesday to protest Lakewood’s decision to end a nearly $4 million courtesy busing program for an estimated 8,100 students.
Courtesy busing is provided as a convenience for students who live within 2½ miles of their schools.
School Superintendent Laura Winters tells the Asbury Park Press (http://on.app.com/1oChxe7 ) all school buses will operate on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Typical misreporting by AP and VIN.
Courtesy busing was cut from the budget, this means that next school year, any child, public school student or not, over third grade who lives less than 2 miles from school will not have busing. In order to appropriately plan for this, the schools felt it neccesary to have a practice run, now, before schools let out. Which is in the two weeks or so. This is responsible planning, not a protest. Of course those who hate the Jews in Lakewood, the editors of VIN clearly amongst them, would falsely portray this otherwise. No surprise, VIN has been doing this for a long time. They are about as much the voice of orthodox Jewery as is the Forvard.
And if a woman goes into labor?? Here in Brooklyn, we pay for bus service.
What an absolute Chillul Hashem! How about having the 8000+ children write letters to School Superintendent Laura Winters instead of draining resources and time from your district and officials.
instead of confronting the real issue were is our tax money going to who is pocketing them they create this yidlock its not going to help please advise the hard working tax dollars answer to the question were is our tax dollars?? is it going to SCHI is it going to BMG is it going to kanerek and company is it going for lower property taxes to the seniors why is it they we are building hundreds of new houses every year and the public school enrollment is down that our taxes keep going up we have all frum township members all frum board of education member and nobody knows were the tax dollars is please bring in and outside auditor or perhaps the FBI do some investigation I am sick and tired of all the non sense.
Just give us the vouchers, and let us pay the school of our choice, and let that school provide the busing!
We pay the most of the school’s budgets in Lakewood, let US Parents choose (at least our children’s part) where we want to spend our tax money!
Thank G-d I don’t Live in Lakewood. I am thinking of incorporating that Brocha into my Birchos Hashachar. What a sick town.
NYC pays for bus service – even for yeshiva students. However, if you have school until late, or, on Sunday, then you have to pay yourself. Nassau county provides bus service even if the child goes to school outside Nassau!!!
You know, taxes are not magic. Someone (your neighbor) has to pay it so you get any services. The issue in Lakewood is how to spend the money they have.
It is not anti Jewish in any sense since it also applies to public school children. I am not sure a “drive in” will get the point across.
All that will show is that there are cars available to bring the children without bus service!
If c’v even one ambulance is delayed by this protest, or there are any other public safety issues, this am haoretz Schenkolewski should be sued and ordered to pay mega-fine$$$. In the great New Jersey tradition of Governor Christie (who is worshiped by many the Lakewood BMG askanim), creating phony traffic jams in densely populated areas is viewed as a legitimate form of political protest and payback. In this case, however, it will ultimately be Schenkolewski who will get the payback.
The reason why Lakewood will need carpooling instead of family pooling is because most families have multiple children in multiple schools scattered all around the town. Many families have found it extremely challenging to enroll their children in the same schools as their siblings. There is also often a mix of elementary school boys, elementary school girls, high school boys, high school girls, and playgroups all in the same family.
Transportation has been complicated enough on legal holidays with little other traffic on the roads for carpooling instead of transportation. On regular business days where there is no bussing and carpooling is attempted, the gridlock on the already overburdened roadways is terrible.
It’s time for Lakewood to get Trenton involved to rebalance the property tax dollars allocated towards education to include a fair amount towards the transportation costs of all students. The state’s contribution amount to Lakewood is also drastically skewed due to the private school and public school reversed ratio compared to the rest of the state.
The Kiryas Joel approach of creating its own public school system may be an effective solution.
Good luck to al
Welcome Lakewood to the real world! Cities like Baltimore and Passaic have never had school busing, in those places and many others, juggling carpools to multiple schools is just a fact of life.
What an embarrassing situation AGAIN!!! Car pool or have the kids walk to school. They don’t study any English, math, science, geography, reading or writing. Let them stay home.
The roads in Lakewood are ALREADY always clogged, and it comes to grid lock during rush hour – bein hasedorim.
There is no point in anyone causing even more mayhem on the roads. How about actually trying to find a solution rather than just thinking Bishvili Nivra HaOlam.
I’m confused- Lakewood has 30+ million to pay schi for special ed and nothing for the regular kids for busing? If you do the math- schi is making millions over what the actual cost is per child. They charge the max allowed by state. Someone is milking the system and depriving the rest of town of simple busing! Time to spread the wealth!
28 and 29
The problem with spreading lies like you two are doing is that the information about SCHI is easily and readily available and it shows that you two are out and out liars.
No surprise to anyone.
The 990s for SCHI and all its related entities are easy to find and they show that nowhere near that amount of funding is coming from the Lakewood BOE, in fact is it not half that amount.
But go ahead and spread lies. Because you are such upstanding well meaning individuals.
I believe the law is that the town has to give either free busing or a payment to the parents if the school is more than 2 miles and if it’s under 2 miles they can offer courtesy busing at their own expense but there is no requirement to do it.
In northern New Jersey – Teaneck gives free busing to schools more than 2 miles away, but Bergenfield gives parents a check, I think about $800. Some parents use this money to hire a private bus but the $800 does not cover the full cost so most of them carpool. What was smart about the yeshivos in Bergen County is they built the elementary school buildings more than 2 miles away from Teaneck. The five main yeshivos are 3 in Paramus, 1 in Englewood and 1 in River Edge which means almost every kid gets either a free bus or a check.