Busing restored due to protesting parents

By Jordan Cohen

Busing had been eliminated as a cost-saving move.

NEWTON FALLS — In a surprise move Monday night, the board of education voted unanimously to authorize Superintendent David Wilson to restore bus service for high school students beginning Nov. 1, the next grading period.

High school busing had been eliminated in August to cut costs, drawing an outcry of protests from numerous parents.

“We had said from the beginning that our first priority was to restore the buses for our high school students,” Wilson said, “and we believe our cost cutting has enabled us to do that.”

Wilson said a number of school departments have been able to reach a general-fund, cost-cutting goal of 10 percent and the district achieved additional savings by not replacing a guidance counselor and a teacher.

“I expect restoring bus service to cost between $45,000 and $50,000 for the balance of the school year,” Wilson said, “but that’s [75 percent] of what the cost would have been if we had not cut busing earlier.”

The decision to eliminate high school busing for the entire school year would have saved the district $97,000, according to earlier statements by the superintendent.

Wilson said Newton Falls High School has about 500 students, but a study indicated that barely more than 20 percent of them, mostly freshmen and sophomores, take the bus. Despite the low figure, more than 70 parents crowded the board meeting to complain about the busing situation two weeks ago.

“They had my ears and the board’s ears as well,” Wilson said.

The school board faces other potentially expensive financial hurdles, however.

An agreement to submit to binding arbitration, which ended the four-day teachers strike last month, will determine instructor salaries while the board continues negotiating a contract with its nonteaching employees. It hopes to resolve some financial issues through a replacement levy next May that Wilson said will not increase taxes.