Sunday, March 10, 2013
Parents responded negatively to Hatboro-Horsham School District's announcement that a reduction in busing for extra-curricular activities was under consideration.
The Hatboro-Horsham School District announced this week that, as a cost-cutting measure to help close a budget shortfall, buses for after-school activities could be cut from five days a week to once a week at Keith Valley Middle School. In dozens of comments posted here on Patch, readers offered various opinions on the issue. Some said the district should not provide after school busing at all, while said the solution is to have "less officials at the top." Still others suggested that administrators take a pay cut, while others called it "insulting" that busing could be reduced for a savings of less than $40,000 a year. What do you think is the best approach to providing busing, or do you think parents should pick up students from after …
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
In an attempt to diminish a budget shortfall, the Hatboro-Horsham School District may reduce some of its existing school bus routes.
As the Hatboro-Horsham School District stares down a deficit in its nearly $90 million 2013-14 spending plan, officials are working to ensure every bus ride and every route count. To help close the shortfall, the district is considering scaling back the existing 4:15 p.m. pickup at Keith Valley Middle School from five days to once a week, according to Director of Business Affairs Bob Reichert. That alone would save the district $25,000 a year, Reichert told the board during Monday night's work session. And since the roughly 45 kids on the buses at those times are either coming from a club or detention, Reichert said the school could schedule everything for one day. "We could still make it all work with the other available buses," Reichert …
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
About a dozen parents of Our Lady of Mercy Catholic School students requested that the Hatboro-Horsham School District ensure faster routes home for their kids.
Calling lengthy bus rides and transfers to Simmons Elementary School “unacceptable,” parents of parochial students asked the Hatboro-Horsham School Board Tuesday to spend an extra $200,000 to get their kids home quicker. One mom, whose sons attend Our Lady of Mercy Catholic School, said her second-grader has been transferring and enduring lengthy bus rides since kindergarten. Now she worries that her younger child, who is also attending the kindergarten through eighth-grade school in Maple Glen, will get home at 4:20 p.m. too. “It’s not just the transfer,” she said. “It’s a workday for these kids and they’re 8 and 6.” She was not alone. Parent after parent shared similar frustration at their kids’ late return home from school. Our Lady of…
Thursday, September 15, 2011
The district joined several neighboring districts in a transportation consortium, which parents said has led to hour-long commutes for their kids.
After joining a money-saving school busing consortium led to "disastrous" results according to a parent, Hatboro-Horsham School District is taking steps to ensure shorter ride times and fewer delays for non-public school students. Since school started last week, Bob Reichert, the district's director of business affairs, has been evaluating various routes to see which are causing lengthy delays and unnecessarily long rides. Any problematic routes that have not been resolved by the end of this week will be removed from the consortium and service will resume through Hatboro-Horsham’s own transportation department. These in-house routes will become fully operational by no later than Tuesday, the district said in a press release. “During the …
Bill Rollin
6:19 pm on Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Im a student, and half the time the 4:15 buses are full. But there is always sports the 5:20 buses are almost standing room only in the fall and spring. If the district were to get rid of the after school busing then we would also have to cut the sports program, extra curricular activities and extra help with teachers. Because of the fact that its the end of the year not many people except … more ›