How private school students will gain from new busing legislation

A unique program that has helped more than 40,000 private school students in Lakewood reduce busing costs and find better transportation options could be duplicated anywhere in the state under legislation approved this week in Trenton.

Senate Bill 3850, unanimously passed in the State Senate on Monday, allows for the formation of nonprofit consortiums for private school transportation using public funds anywhere in New Jersey.

With a growing Orthodox community in Lakewood and surrounding areas such as Howell, Jackson, Brick and Toms River, the use of such an organization to handle more private school busing is needed, officials said.

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“As privatized busing continues to grow, SB3850 will help combat the expenses that come with that growth,” Toms River Superintendent Michael Citta said via email. “And while the bill doesn’t necessarily become a budget saver for Toms River right away, it’s an important preventative measure with regard to that projected busing growth in the years to come.”

The expanded option may also help other non-public school students, such as the 80,000 who are currently bused to Catholic schools around the state, according to George Corwell, education director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference.

“We would like to cut private school busing costs,” he said. “It may vary whether it is possible from area to area around the state, Lakewood is a unique situation, they have a large number of students in one concentrated area,”

Currently, only the Lakewood Student Transportation Authority, created in 2016, utilizes such an approach under special legislation approved in 2014.

The authority takes the burden of busing away from the Lakewood School District by handling transportation for the township’s private school students, which is required by law.

For the past seven years, it has used funding received from the district and the state to arrange busing for non-public school students who attend some 130 private schools in the township.

That volume approach saves the district money both in more economical and flexible routes, and by removing the burden of bus operations and scheduling from district staff.

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“Many of the (busing) contracts are cheaper than we would get if we would go to bid them out,” Lakewood Schools Spokesman Michale Inzelbuch said. “And we don’t have the headache of operating buses and fixing flat tires.”

But until now, only Lakewood Schools were allowed to form such entities and had been doing so under special legislation that was due to expire.

The new law allows other districts to form such non-profit groups for the purpose of overseeing private school bus routes, while also allowing several districts to do so as a joint entity.

“It gives permission for the LSTA to work with Jackson or Howell or any other district,” said Inzelbuch. “To give them some flexibility to take on the kids and get busing.”

Gov. Phil Murphy has until Jan. 16 to sign the bill into law. A spokesman for his office would not comment on his plans.

"If I am reading correctly it puts our responsibility for determining non public transportation needs on the consortium that would be created," said Thomas Farrell, superintendent of Brick Township Schools. "That could provide us savings on the time we now spend on nonpublic transportation needs and possibly lower costs if the consortium is able to consolidate routes to include multiple public schools attending nonpublic schools."

The new legislation also keeps the LSTA going beyond this year as it was operating on an extension of the 2016 law set to expire at the end of the 2023-2024 school year, Inzelbuch said.

“This is a win-win for Lakewood,” he said. “This current year we needed to get specific permission from the state to continue the utilization of the LSTA, an entity that by conservative estimate saves hundreds of thousands of dollars for the district, as opposed to the district busing the students.”

State statute mandates that all students, private or public, receive free busing if they live more than 2 miles away from their elementary or middle school, and 2.5 miles from high schools.

But if only a few students from a private school live in a specific area it may be difficult to find a bus company willing to transport them because it is not cost-efficient to run a bus for only a handful of passengers.

The consortium helps counter that issue by contracting with many bus companies to create routes that can serve the most students, a practice the school district is not often equipped to do.

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If a student is still unable to secure a bus spot, the parents receive funding for their own transportation known as “payment in lieu of” grants, much of which comes from the local districts.

Corwell said last year marked the first time that more Catholic School students in New Jersey received the “in lieu of” payments than actual busing.

The funding, however, does not always solve the problem of finding a reliable ride for their children, especially for those who attend private schools many miles from home.

Officials said allowing consortiums statewide will give more of those students an option to find reliable daily transportation, while reducing local district costs.

The State Department of Education sets the top fee that bus companies can charge per student. That fee, set at $1,022 last year, was increased to $1,165 for the 2023-2024 school year.

The creation of the LSTA in 2016 occurred as the township’s Orthodox community began to skyrocket, sparking a population increase from 92,843 in 2010 to 135,138 in 2020, according to the U.S. Census.

“It needs to be bigger than one town, bigger than Lakewood and it needs to be a more diverse population,” State Senator Vin Gopal, a co-sponsor of the bill, said last year. “It’s very hard on the parents and we have seen a surge in public schools where they do not have the ability to handle it.”

Joe Strupp is an award-winning journalist with 30 years’ experience who covers education and several local communities for APP.com and the Asbury Park Press. He is also the author of three books, including Killing Journalism on the state of the news media, and an adjunct media professor at Rutgers University and Fairleigh Dickinson University. Reach him at jstrupp@gannettnj.com and at 732-413-3840. Follow him on Twitter at @joestrupp

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: NJ cost for non-public school transit program could top $12 million