From Harford County Public Schools:
In May 2013, the Harford County Council approved the county budget, which resulted in a shortfall of $20.2 million in the Board of Education of Harford County’s budget request. As a result, it was necessary for the Board of Education (Board) to develop revenue-generating strategies and to identify expenditure reductions in order to balance the school system’s budget.
On June 10, 2013, as a part of the expenditure reductions, four different transportation changes were adopted when the Board approved the Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14) Operating Budget that will save the school system approximately $890,000. These changes, effective August 26 for the start of the 2013-14 school year, include: four new elementary schools added to the fourth tier schedule, elimination of previously approved exemptions to the Harford County Public Schools (HCPS) transportation policy, depot bus stops established for magnet school students, and consolidated bus stops established for both middle and high school bus routes.
“While my Board colleagues and I lamented on approving changes to these services that have been provided for our students for many years,” said Board President Rick Grambo, “we have arrived at a point where cost-saving strategies are necessary to begin making improvements to our budget picture that will affect generations of students for years to come.”
Four new elementary schools move to fourth tier schedule
The following elementary schools have been added to the fourth tier schedule: Bakerfield, Red Pump, Bel Air and Forest Lakes. The school day at these four locations will now start at 9:30 a.m., and students will be dismissed at 4:00 p.m. Parents/guardians of students attending these four schools were notified by mail with a letter dated July 17, 2013.
The four schools were selected using specific criteria such as number of available buses in surrounding schools, timing and proximity. By modifying the school day for these four schools, buses will be able to service more schools, thereby decreasing the number of total buses necessary and eliminating costs associated with the extra buses, such as fuel, maintenance and personnel costs.
Exceptions to transportation policy eliminated
Board policy states that elementary students who live within a one-mile radius of school and secondary students who live within a one-and-a-half-mile radius of school are not eligible for transportation service. For many years, waivers and exceptions to this policy have been granted. As the Board is no longer in a financial position to provide transportation for those students, the waivers have been eliminated. Parents of the students affected by this change were notified by mail with a letter dated July 17, 2013.
By eliminating the waivers and reducing the number of riders in close proximity, HCPS was able to further reduce the number of buses needed. Criteria that are used to determine non service areas in all other schools were applied to these cases and the exemptions were lifted.
Magnet program depot stops
Transporting magnet program students is costly due to the dispersion of students going to programs throughout the county. A depot stop system has been established for all HCPS students enrolled in the Science and Mathematics Academy at Aberdeen High School, the Global Studies Program/International Baccalaureate Program at Edgewood High School, and the Natural Resources and Agricultural Science Program at North Harford High School.
The depot stop system incorporates the designation of several sites throughout the county where buses will pick-up and drop-off students when transporting them to their magnet program. Each magnet student’s home high school will now serve as the designated depot stop. Transportation to and from the depot site to the child’s home will be the responsibility of the parent/guardian. It is up to the parent/guardian to determine the appropriate means by which their student will arrive to and return home from the depot location. Many surrounding school districts utilize shopping center parking lots and recreation areas as depot locations; however, HCPS feels that the safest practice is to have students wait for their bus on HCPS property.
As a result of the creation of depot stops, in general, students will now be spending less time on buses for transport to and from school throughout the county. Parents of the students affected by this change were notified by mail with a letter dated July 17, 2013. In addition, during the second week of August, parents will receive a postcard from the HCPS Transportation Office with the confirmation of their child’s depot location.
Consolidated bus stops for middle and high school students
Middle and high school bus routes are being reconfigured to decrease the number of stops, as well as the length of the routes, where possible. As the new routes are being configured, great care is being taken to ensure the safety of HCPS students. Reducing the number of stops for middle and high school students will reduce the cost of completing a bus run.
Release of bus routes, stop locations and pick-up times
Bus routes are still being finalized for the 2013-14 school year. The routes, as well as bus stop locations, pick-up and drop-off times and bus numbers, will be posted on the school system’s website as soon as they are available. An automated call will be made to notify parents/guardians when the information is posted. It is important for parents to access the information as soon as possible, as the first day of school is Monday, August 26, 2013. Parents are urged to review the routes and pay close attention to stop locations and bus numbers, as they most likely have changed from previous years. Middle and high school parents especially will want to pay close attention to the information and the consolidated stop locations.
If parents of students who are affected by the transportation changes have not received information, they should visit their child’s school Edline website or contact their child’s school as soon as possible.
“Said Board President Rick Grambo, ‘we have arrived at a point where cost-saving strategies are necessary to begin making improvements to our budget picture…'”
Well it’s about time. Maybe if the Board of Ed had been acting as good stewards of the funds that are provided by the county and the state all along, they could have been putting more financial resources where they belong — in the classroom and in teachers’ pockets.
or they could take less from my pocket
Money Tree,
Less from your pocket? They would rather be burned at the stake before they would even consider that. Never. Never. Never. Why you should be ashamed of yourself to even think such thoughts.
lol, they aren’t taxing your minimum wage all that hard, bud
Grambo’s quote is ridiculous. Cost saving measures, strategies, cuts whatever you want to call them have been put into effect every year for the past 5 years.
I want to call them identifying and eliminating waste but, alas, that will never happen so I can’t.
Having been caught at the red light on 543 to let out the buses of C Milton Wright out, I was surprised at the number of buses that appeared to have 10 or less students on them.
So now the magnet programs will be just as difficult to participate in as attending John Carroll…
Well, other than the $14,250 yearly tuition…
Some posters on Dagger have always pointed out the transportation issues with JC as a primary reason why HCPS, and the magnet program in particular, is a better choice in their opinion (cdev in particular, but I believe there were others)
It’s worth the $14K to get away from HCPS, HCEA and all of the waste and whining.
As long as you keep sending in your tax dollars so I can suck off the teat of this pathetic county, who cares where your kids go to school?
It would have been one thing to tell the magnet school parents about this busing nightmare during the previuos school year so we had time to make other arrangements. But a month before school starts? What the hell are they thinking?
Dear Mary,
The bussing changes did not come about until the end of June. I would assume it took time to work out all the logistics. These changes are a direct result of HCPS not being funded appropriately.
Exactly. I have no time to try fighting this thing or finding some solution to my transportation problem. So now I have 2 children enrolled in 2 different magnet schools and no way to pick them up from their new “bus stop”. When we enrolled them, we were told to expect transportation from consolidated neighborhood bus stops. We would have made another decision had we known we would have to provide our own transportaion. We would have at least had them go to the same school. Now we are stuck in a transportation nightmare. And we are not the only parents in this nightmare. EVERY parent that I have heard from has no way to get their children home from school. It is not just an inconvenience. We are not thinking, “Darn, I will miss my favorite talk show while I am driving 20 minutes to pick up the kids”. It’s more like, “If I leave work for an hour every day to pick up my kids, how long till my job is in jeopardy.”
Please contact me. My office number is 410 838 0800.
I will. Tomorrow morning.
I agree Mary, this is a nightmare! My daughter attends a magnet program, and quite frankly, unless the policy chages, we may be faced with telling her that the opportunities that she worked so hard for are no longer going to be available to her! Furthermore, this policy change will have large numbers of high school students hanging out at their home school for hours until parents that work are available to pick them up. This new policy is highly discriminatory, as it effectively limits the availability of the PUBLIC SCHOOL magnet programs to families that do not have two working parents, and are able to transport their children to and from the home schools. I have emailed David Crag, Billy Boniface and the school board as well as news media. I encourage everyone to do the same!
Unfortunately, these are the things that will be happening in order for HCPS to attempt to run the school system without proper funding. I am sorry that this is happening to you. I had a child who attended a magnet program and this would have made things very difficult for our family. Perhaps you should share your feelings with the County Executive and the County Council and ask them what they plan to do with the 92 million dollar surplus money that could have helped our school system.
I emailed the County Council on Friday with no response. David Craig just passed along my email to the school board.
That tells us where his priorities are; perhaps voters will remember how he has treated his own at election time. I would not want a person in office who cannot and will not meet the needs of his voters. Truly I am sorry for your transportation problems; it makes it hard for us as parents to meet our childrens educational needs.
Now, you can see why teachers must take such desperate measures.
Of course you get no response or shuffled to the school system. This is how they try to deflect responsibility for this mess. They are culpable and as others have said you should remember these people come election time. Perhaps others will properly fund the school system.
It is beyond belief that they would consider 4th tier bussing and depot stops for magnet students before eliminating transportation for extracurricular athletics. Athletics are not required programs – why don’t they just dump all of that onto the Parks and Rec department. Then they could schedule all of the athletic contests AFTER school and funding for transportation to and from these events could come from outside of the school budget. This would also free up all of the coaching stipends for use in the classroom or to honor the teachers contracts. I would bet several of the adults would volunteer their time without pay just to keep these popular programs alive and well.
Your suggestion would cause rioting in the streets. Look at all the complaints about the pay to play and activity fees.
If they eliminated 8 Instructional Facilitator positions that would easily fund the transportation issues. Oh wait…the principals couldn’t survive without them. Not sure why?…they do nothing!!
So the school system saves money by passing the cost along to the parents?
We will now have to pay for before school care as the new schedule will not allow myself or my wife to get to work even close to 9:00 AM.
This is a load of Bull***t!
Pay for it in your taxes by properly funding the school and have it covered en masse ,or else have everything converted to a fee type system where you feel the bite little bits at a time.
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