The Merrimack Valley School Board will vote next month on whether to discontinue bus routes for nearly all students who reside in Penacook.
The route cancellations would affect Penacook residents within 1.5 miles of their children’s school. The proposal, prompted by extreme challenges in hiring enough bus drivers, has thrown families into a state of uncertainty.
“The first reaction is panic,” school board member Jessica Wheeler Russell of Penacook said of the concerns she has fielded. “My gut reaction as a working parent is: What are working parents going to do?”
Last year, 305 students attended the kindergarten through fifth-grade Penacook Elementary School, according to data from the Department of Education. Roughly 150 more Penacook students attend Merrimack Valley Middle School.
The community is the most populous and dense of the five that make up the district. It is also where the middle and high schools are located.
The proposal would not affect families in the other towns within the school district, even if they live within 1.5 miles of their children’s school, according to Wheeler Russell. State law requires school districts to provide transportation to students in grades kindergarten through eight who live more than two miles from their school, though most school districts provide additional bus coverage.
A severe bus driver shortage has plagued school districts across the country in recent years and became especially pronounced in Merrimack Valley last year, forcing the district to cancel bus routes at times.
“It was the first year I’ve ever had to actually look and be like, ‘Does my child have a bus today?’” Wheeler Russell said in an interview.
The transportation committee considered three options: continuing to run the same bus routes as last year without being able to guarantee consistent service, hiring pricey contractors to staff certain buses, or discontinuing the Penacook routes.
The board is set to vote on the committee’s proposal to eliminate the Penacook buses at its monthly meeting on Aug. 4.
Wheeler Russell said that while she hasn’t definitively decided, she is leaning against supporting the cancellation of the Penacook routes. She raised concerns about safety and about the burden on families.
District director of transportation Noelle Panagopoulos did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Thursday.
The decision will involve considerations of safety and cost — both for the district and for individual families.
Penacook’s streets don’t all have sidewalks. It would also be a financial and logistical challenge for many families to rearrange the morning and afternoon routines just weeks before the school year is set to start.
“It’s not wise to give parents less than 30 days notice that they need to find before and after care, or let their seven-year-old walk by themselves,” Wheeler Russell said.
The board will have to grapple with how to proceed as it heads into a year already marked by uncertainty due to residents’ decision last year to reject the board’s proposed school budget. Hiring contractors to staff certain bus routes would eat further into a budget that is already strained.
Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.
