Pine Bush offers after-school buses, thanks to grant funding

By Kerry Butrick Dowling
Posted 11/18/22

At the Board of Education Meeting on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, Pine Bush Central School District Assistant Superintendent for Business Joseph Lenz shared that this year the district is able to …

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Pine Bush offers after-school buses, thanks to grant funding

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At the Board of Education Meeting on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, Pine Bush Central School District Assistant Superintendent for Business Joseph Lenz shared that this year the district is able to utilize grant funding to offer additional busses for late or afterschool programming. This allows students the opportunity to take advantage of programs and extracurricular activities that they may have previously been unable to benefit from due to lack of transportation.

“So this year, we do have grants available and are utilizing some of those funds to provide additional transportation services in ways that we haven’t been able to in the past. At our elementary level in particular, we have programs after school for students, and some of those students aren’t able to stay, because they don’t have transportation then to get home. So through these grants, we’re able to set up some transportation to offer these students the same programs that other students have been accessing and get them home after school. A ‘late bus’ that we’re all familiar with at the high school level, but now incorporating that and creating routes for those students at the elementary level using those grants,” explained Lenz.

The District is also in the process of creating a request for proposal (RFP) for transportation services. Lenz went on to say that the district has used the services of Birnie Bus Service, Inc. for the last five years which is the traditional length of an agreement. With the agreement coming to an end this year, the district is preparing to go out for RFP. It is expected that the RFP will go out within the next week and anticipate having responses due for December 9 which will then go before the Board after a committee review.

Board of Education President Gretchen Meier asked, “I love that fact that we’re going to have additional runs because I think that’s awesome, for more kids to be involved the better. Do we have the drivers?”

Lenz explained, “We do because of the time of day- that was an important factor. And of course, we also need the drivers to say yes, right, because it’s an additional time. So that was one of the first things I asked when we went down this path, I reached out to the transportation supervisor and said, is there anyone that’s willing to do this? Because you’re absolutely right- without people stepping up we can’t make it happen no matter if the money is available.”