Happy New Year: The fight continues. Please forward to other parents
Deptford NJ, reverses their transportation policy: https://youtu.be/ROUmxZ_MghY?feature=shared
Hey,
Did you know that the South Plainfield's Superintendent's office sent out a survey to determine how many parents would like to have before/after care for middle school students due to the impact taking away of transportation?
Apparently less than 10! (see The Results email below)
However, many have reached out and mentioned that either they did not see the email or were too late to respond.
Some facts:
- Email sent out for petition
- Last date to respond in few days. Yes less thandays to respond
- The results are less than 10, except many of you had different views. a)this does not address original asks or b)would rather pay for subscription busing.
Subscription Busing is available in neighboring schools
- Piscataway: https://www.piscatawayschools.org/cms/one.aspx?portalId=804134&pageId=1116217
- Edison: https://core-docs.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/4500/EPS/4726971/SubscriptionBusingLetterToFamilies_43024.pdf
- Other districts in NJ provide this too.
Note: The NJ Board of education states that any school district that provides courtesy bussing must provide subscription bussing to routes where there are hazardous routes. reference here. This is exactly what this petition is asking.
A few disturbing facts.
- The school district has chosen to provide courtesy busing to their employees who do should not qualify under distance or IEP/special needs.
- There are also parents who are getting courtesy transportation and do not qualify based on the correspondence from the board and Superintendent's office.
- The Superintendant want parents to escalate this to the NJ governor and leaders. Isn't this their job and to provide facts
- The Superintendant has not provided facts and figures to the Board.
- The board continues to ignore parents. Off recording the board chairman mentioned to a parent that they will not get it.
- The board has ignored their responsibility in working with the district to determine hazardous routes despite facts, pictures, and proof provided to them.
- The Superintendents office claims that only a couple of parents have asked for service and 10% capacity is reserved for future students. Give the seats to students that need it then!
WHAT CAN YOU DO
Email the superintendant demanding resolution to this petition, copy the board, and parents of south plainfield.
nlishak@spboe.org, tcassio@spboe.org, parentsofsouthplainfieldnj@gmail.com
The Results:
Good morning,
Please see email below from the superintendent regarding the Middle School survey. Unfortunately, the minimum requirement of 10 students was not achieved. As a result, we cannot offer the MS aftercare program at this time.
Regards,
Tom Cassio
tcassio@spboe.org>
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From: Noreen Lishak <nlishak@spboe.org>
Sent: Monday, November 4, 2024 1:08 PM
To: Thomas Cassio <tcassio@spboe.org>
Subject:
Mr. Cassio,
You mentioned last week you forwarded my correspondence to the parent group regarding their transportation concerns. In the email, I stated that I would share the results of the middle school aftercare survey once the survey period closed. The survey period closed last Friday, November 1, 2024. The district sent out five hundred fifty-four (554), survey emails to the parent’s/guardian’s addresses registered to the middle school. All parents/guardians received the survey, along with the date to respond. As of this morning, only a small number of parents/guardians, thirty-five (35), had responded to the survey with only six (6) parents/guardians indicating they would be interested in registering their child for the middle school aftercare program. Unfortunately, there is not enough interest in the program to consider beginning a self-sustaining tuition-based middle school aftercare program.
Regards,
Noreen Tansey Lishak, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
South Plainfield Public Schools
(908) 754-4620 Ext. 225
nlishak@spboe.org