KEEP MOORESTOWN KIDS SAFE – KEEP OUR SCHOOL BUSES!

Sign this Petition to keep Moorestown kids safe and to keep our school buses.

We, Moorestown parents, guardians, caretakers and taxpayers, oppose the Board of Education's plan to permanently stop busing for children in kindergarten through 8th grade who live within 2 miles of school and to permanently stop busing for children in grades 9 through 12 within 2.5 miles of the high school, while at the same time raising our taxes.  We believe this proposed policy change negatively impacts Moorestown in many ways, including: 

1.      Unsafe for Our Children. Hundreds of additional children will be forced to walk or ride bikes for miles through town on dangerous roads, many of which do not have sidewalks, in darkness, rain, snow and ice. Many parents will be forced to drive their kids to and from school which will have a serious impact on work and family schedules. We believe this will also cause a chaotic and dangerous influx of traffic around each of the district’s schools, negatively impacting our town.

Here is part of an email (exactly as written) from the Transportation Manager to a concerned parent, where he advises the parent of the “safest and shortest” path for her elementary school children to walk under the proposed new policy:  

“The children can walk down New Albany on the sidewalk to Mansfield turn left on Bowman right on Leeds Road turn left on Bartman and left on Mills follow that and turn left into Maple Leaf Lane a right on W Walnut and then a left onto Maple then left on W Maple into the school. This is the safest and shortest path at 28 minutes and 1.4 miles.”

We believe expecting young children to walk up to 2.0 miles (or 2.5 miles for high school students) twice per day, though all types of weather, carrying a heavy backpack, computer bag, and instruments, is dangerous and unnecessary.

2.      Unnecessary. Moorestown’s school budget is $78 million. According to the Board of Ed, cutting this busing “saves” $125,000. Meanwhile, there are many inefficiencies in the current bus routes, and in the overall budget, which could be further analyzed to cut costs.  

3.      Harms Property Values and Tax Base. Common sense dictates that the value of a house (and thus its school tax base) is negatively impacted when a potential buyer with children is told "this house has no busing to school." In addition, we believe homes close to schools will be negatively impacted by the increased traffic congestion twice a day.

4.      Costly. If this busing cut passes, we believe the town will have to utilize more of our police resources, hire many new crossing guards, upgrade traffic lights, and paint crosswalks, in order to ensure the safety of hundreds of kids without a bus.

5.      No Plan or Transparency. The Board spent three minutes discussing the busing cut at their last public meeting on this issue, wrongly concluding that it would have "limited impact" while acknowledging they had not (and still have not) notified parents and taxpayers. There has not been transparency in how the Board has analyzed, if at all, how the current busing system can be streamlined and made more efficient, how this change will cause increased costs in other areas, such as the police resources and crossing guards mentioned above, and the impact this will have on families and children’s safety.

6. Added Burden on Our Schools, Principals, and Teachers.  If this busing cut passes, an additional burden will fall on principals, teachers and staff who will now be required to oversee hundreds of additional walkers and cars twice daily, in an arrival and dismissal atmosphere that is already very difficult and overly congested.

The purported “savings” of $125,000 by cutting this busing is substantially outweighed by all of the other costs and risks associated with such a decision. We petition the Board of Education to reverse course and keep our students safe.  Please maintain our current student bus service!