If you can believe what you read over at NJ.com’s Bloomfield forum, the Bloomfield Board of Ed and its administrators need some remedial math. According to one post, Bloomfield has miscounted the number of students at St. Thomas the Apostle who are eligible for a state-mandated bus ride to school or, alternatively, a payment of $771 for the year. Because of the confusion, Bloomfield hasn’t contracted for a bus to drive the students, and some parents of the Catholic school kids there are steaming mad.
But resident Ginny Cocchi says that getting busing from the Bloomfield schools is no bargain. Her sons ride the #13 bus in Bloomfield — when it shows up.
Posters at the forum also say that large numbers of non-residents are going to the Bloomfield public schools. As many as 300 “aliens” are attending public schools gratis, they say, despite a re-registration drive this summer that was supposed to weed non-residents out.
Hi, Debby. Thanks for contacting me on this issue. Yes, the #13 bus is a nightmare. If the BOE would hand me $771 x 2 I’d take it in a heartbeat and drive my own kids. It beats standing on a corner for up to an hour in pouring rain. It beats the bus not showing up after school and then having four different school offices deny my son’s request to use their phone to call home for a ride.
Well, according to the agenda I saw, on Tuesday night the Board of Education readdressed the omnipresent Dress Code Policy.
If you ask me, the board of education needs to get its own house in order before snooping through others’ closets for beyond-fingertip-length t-shirts.
You are so right Debbie and GC. The Bloomfield BOE really is about inaccuracy and attending to unimportant details.