GREENFIELD — Between conversations of a potential partnership with the Franklin Regional Transportation Authority and costs of additional outsourcing busing in the school district, Superintendent Jordana Harper rolled to a stop and simplified the question: How do we cut $500,000 from the transportation budget?
Suggesting possible ways that Greenfield Public Schools can start to chip away at transportation costs in the long run, Harper pointed to a simpler short-term solution — to make it safer for students to walk to their neighborhood schools, which could decrease the number of children taking the bus.
“How do we increase the safety so that we can scale back on the transportation?” Harper asked the Facilities, Health and Safety Subcommittee during its meeting Monday. “How do we encourage families to choose their neighborhood schools?”
Currently, the school district spends an estimated $1.5 million on all costs related to transportation, from contracts with a bus company to paying for bus monitors. Accounting for about 8 percent of the school’s budget, rising transportation costs have brought to table an array of possible future solutions.
Safer walking
What Harper really wants to focus on is making local schools easier to walk to during the school year.
Following direction from the subcommittee, Harper will work with school principals to figure out what needs to be done to increase the safety of students walking to the schools.
The superintendent and her transportation manager pointed to was creating more “school zones,” where traffic has to slow down, with the potential for more crossing guards as a possibility of accomplishing this. The main area of discussion was on Federal Street by Greenfield Middle School.
It’s also a matter of making sure curbs are up to code, as well as lighting is sufficient on the proper blocks.
“I love the idea of really getting people to walk to school more frequently, but I really get there would be a need for a cultural shift,” School Committee Vice Chair Adrienne Nunez said at the meeting.
Harper said the Department of Public Works is looking at many of these issues, but she said it would be helpful to have a recommendation from either the subcommittee or the full School Committee to show the need for cooperation and collaboration between the schools and the town.
Harper sees this as an opportunity to cut down on transportation costs twofold: students won’t have to be bused to their neighborhood schools and students choicing to another school within the district won’t increase the cost of transportation.
Students who choice out to a different elementary school within the district are required to provide their own transportation, but the enforcement of that rule had been lax by the department. Harper said with this year’s kindergarten class, they are working to formally enforce it and make it is a well-known rule.
“Long term, if you asked me how to reduce transportation costs in Greenfield: Go to your neighborhood schools.”
FRTA possibilities?
Spearheading the conversation about transportation cost savings was Mayor William Martin when he mentioned during a subcommittee meeting in July that the school should join efforts with FRTA as a way to bring down costs of an “unsustainable budget” and as a way to integrate the public transportation group more into the culture of Greenfield.
Harper and the subcommittee’s chairman Cameron Ward said that a pilot with FRTA for high school students is seriously in the conversation as soon as the 2018-19 school year, provided that the bus company’s new routes and shelters are completely setup.
“It’s good to explore a collaboration with the FRTA,” Harper said, but added that there still is a lot of roadblocks before this could be put into action.
“There’s a reason not all the districts around here are doing this,” Harper said. “There’s a reason why this exists in more urban areas, where people are more accustomed to riding transportation.”
The subcommittee did estimate the cost to the district to get a bus ticket for every student that rides the buses. The total came to about $100,000 for the school year to pay for the passes for the 650 students that could ride the bus.
Ward asked Harper and her transportation manager what the costs would like if the school district entirely outsourced its needs to a bus company, and not necessarily with Kuzmeskus, which it currently uses.
Harper and Michael Howes, the transportation manager, both said it would not be a cost-effective option.
