East Penn may Look at Cutting Busing in 2013-2014

The East Penn Superintendent of Schools said a few things at last night’s school board meeting that he knows will get people upset. And, what’s more, he did it on purpose.

Thomas L. Seidenberger told the that East Penn would likely have to take a good hard look at transportation costs in preparing the 2013-2014 budget, stressing that any changes or cuts to student transportation services in the district would be at least a year away.

“Unless something is done with the ,” Seidenberger said, “and transportation is taken out of that, this is something that we are going to have to seriously look into.

“This is the buzz of conversations among superintendents. I think a lot of schools are going to look at it.”

The “Student Achievement Education Block Grant” in the Governor’s proposed budget purports to simplify education funding by consolidating multiple budget categories, including basic education funding, pupil transporation and school employees' social security, into a into a single line item. The Governor’s office says this streamlined approach will allow more flexibility at the local level.

After the meeting, Seidenberger said that he knows parents will be upset to learn that the district would consider cutting student bus service down the road. He brought up the topic, he said, to motivate East Penn residents to contact their legislators and express their unhappiness with the Governor’s proposed budget.

School director Alan Earnshaw said that there are many factors to consider when looking at transportation, including the environmental impact. “We get a lot of traffic off the road (by bussing students),” he said. “This is something we will definitely have to go slow on.”

Transportation costs account for about $6.5 million of the East Penn School District Budget. School districts are only legally required to bus special education students.

School Board President Charles Ballard explained that if East Penn were to ever discontinue bus service for its public school students, the district would no longer be obligated to bus non-public school students who live in the district, such as those youngsters who attend schools like .

“This is the kind of thing we really have to talk about,” Ballard said. “If we do not provide transportation to our own students, we don’t have to provide it to anyone else.”

Seidenberger gave the board this heads up as he presented the East Penn Board of School Directors with a first cut at the 2012-2013 East Penn budget – a budget book that will go through many revisions and iterations before it even becomes the “proposed preliminary budget” that the board will vote on in May.

Seidenberger also said he would recommend that the district evaluate its student data system, used to maintain things like grades, course scheduling and attendance records, with the 2013-2014 budget cycle to see if any cost savings could be found.