Twenty-one Eisenhower Middle School students are on the waitlist for a subscription school bus seat this year, more than double the 10 students waitlisted at this point last year, the Board of Education was told at its August 17 meeting.[1] With Eisenhower's enrollment growing, board member Georgina Nico said the district may end up with no open subscription seats at all this year.[14] In response, Nico said the district is surveying parents on whether they'd sign their kids up for a YMCA before- and aftercare program at the middle school as a backup option — something the Y doesn't typically offer above elementary level.[2][9] That survey, from Superintendent Dr. Postma, is the district's main answer so far to a waitlist officials say could go unresolved this year for the first time.[2]

The waitlist numbers came up after Rosa Fernandes, a parent, raised the issue during public comment.[3] Fernandes said she relies on the bus to get her daughter home from Eisenhower and doesn't have another way to do it as a working parent.[13] She lives 1.9 miles from the school — just under the two-mile mark that triggers mandatory busing under state law — and described unsafe walking conditions on the route, including streets near her home with no sidewalks and a hard-to-see crossing at a nearby intersection with Route 208.[4] She asked the board to consider some way to reassign unused seats, such as tracking which subscription riders aren't actually using their bus pass.[11]

Patricia Salvati, the district's business administrator and board secretary, explained how the district allocates seats.[5] State law — not district discretion — sets the baseline: New Jersey requires districts to bus students who live two or more miles from school, and Wyckoff runs five buses to cover that mandatory service, which Salvati said is sufficient for this year's mandatory riders.[6] Remaining seats are sold as subscription busing to families who live closer. But the district can't simply reclaim a mandatory rider's seat to free one up: the district asks those families whether they'd be willing to give up a seat they don't need, and if a parent says the child needs it, that seat is theirs by law whether or not the child rides every day. "I can't take that seat away from them," Salvati said.[7] Adding a sixth bus isn't simply a matter of the waitlist either. It would mean redoing routes across the district and going back out to bid, which exposes the cost to whatever the market is doing at the time — and fuel costs have risen sharply since February.[12] Because there aren't enough subscription riders to fill another bus, she said, taxpayers would cover the difference.[19]

In practice, the district has been able to seat every waitlisted family in recent years by monitoring ridership once school is underway and reassigning seats that go unused. Officials said that pattern held last year, when all 10 waitlisted students had a seat by Halloween.[8] But with this year's waitlist more than double that, and Eisenhower's enrollment continuing to climb, officials said they can't guarantee the same outcome and may end up with no subscription seats to reassign at all.[1][14]

That's why the YMCA option is on the table. The proposal would bring a Y-run before- and aftercare program to Eisenhower for families who don't get a bus seat.[9] Nico said the Y needs a minimum of 10 committed students to operate the program, though she cautioned there's no guarantee it will happen even if that threshold is met,[17][10] and officials urged parents who might be interested to fill out the survey so the district can gauge demand.[15] The survey is open to any family with a child attending Eisenhower this fall and closes August 21.[18]

The discussion took place during the public-comment and new-business portions of the meeting; no vote or formal board action on busing or the YMCA proposal was taken.