The three-year battle to reinstate school bus service for seventh- and eighth-grade students on Staten Island and in Queens ended with Gov. Cuomo’s much-anticipated signature June 1. Cuomo’s approval came after the New York State legislature unanimously passed a bipartisan bill in March to exempt New York City from the “like circumstances” clause of New York State Education law (S.6027/A.8683).
Intermediate school students who were eligible for yellow bus service before the city revoked the variance can ride the buses again, and the vast majority of affected students are on Staten Island, with some in the Breezy Point and College Point sections of Queens.
“This legislation will allow us to restore school busing to thousands of eligible seventh- and eighth-grade students in Staten Island and Queens, starting this September,” Marge Feinberg of the NYC Department of Education told School Transportation News.
“I know this is a great relief for parents of schoolchildren who have had to worry even more than usual about the safety of their children ever since school bus service had been taken away,” said state Sen. Andrew Lanza, who spearheaded the bill along with Assemblyman Michael Cusick.
A host of community leaders also worked on getting the bus service restored, including state Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, representatives of the New York City DOE’s Community Education Council 31 and the local Amalgamated Transit Union.
“Staten Island children live farther away from school, on average, than any other children in New York City,” Lanza said in March. “Staten Island also has fewer public transportation options, sidewalks and traffic signals, leaving our children at greater risk in the absence of bus service. For us, school bus service is a critical need and not a luxury.”
“It is important for the safety of our children, and I am pleased that we were able to work with the New York City Department of Education to restore this necessary service to our children,” said Cusick.
The department typically only provides school bus service to students through sixth grade, but it has had the power to grant variances to seventh- and eighth- grade students. In the past 18 years, variances have been granted to 70 schools for intermediate students because of limited public transportation options in their area.
In September 2009, the department revoked a variance that made seventh and eighth graders eligible for school bus service and eliminated this service for approximately 4,600 students in Staten Island where mass-transit options are limited. The schools covered by the variance includes all of Staten Island’s 42 public intermediate schools as well as a number of private and parochial schools serving grades seven and eight. Six schools in Queens were affected.
Cusick has championed school bus safety before, introducing A.0250 in 2011 to increase penalties for motorists who illegally pass a stopped school bus and creating the crime of vehicular homicide in the third degree. The bill was referred to transportation this past January but never went to a vote.
“We need to increase the penalties because we’re dealing with lives here,” he said. “If somebody is not obeying the law, then unfortunately something bad will happen.”
