The Acton Boxborough Regional School Committee (ABRSC) and Acton Boxborough Transitional School Committee (ABTSC) are providing an interim update on regional transportation plans due to an apparent strong community interest in this subject.
Any comments or concerns regarding this update should be directed to Kristina Rychlik at krychlik@abschools.org.
The update:
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At our Oct. 3 School Committee meeting, JD Head, our Director of Facilities and Transportation, presented a first look at possible student transportation options as we move into a single PreK-12 school district. A great deal of work has been done by JD and his staff to develop a workable transportation plan that would safely accommodate the needs of our communities while providing a continued high level of service to our students and their families in both Acton and Boxborough.
In summary, as presented at our Dec. 5 School Committee meeting, it is both too complex and too costly to implement a one-tier elementary transportation plan for the upcoming 2014-2015 school year at this time. Our current transportation facility and operational structure will not support the level of additional buses required in a one-tier system. Therefore, a modest investment must be made in additional supports for this to be workable in addition to the time required to develop a thoughtful, safe and cost-effective plan.
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As a Committee we believe that getting our district to a one-tier transportation system on the elementary level is of great importance, and should remain a goal for the 2015-2016 school year. Therefore, we have asked for JD and his staff to further develop this in a step-wise fashion. The plan is to have a three-tier transportation system for 2014-2015 (K-12), with all six elementary schools on the early/late schedule currently in place in Acton, keeping our transportation in-house and thus making only a modest investment in new buses and operational support. This is a first step towards our goal of all six elementary schools starting at the same time each day.
We welcome input from the community, parents, teachers and staff on this issue. Please feel free to email us at abrsc@abschools.org.
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