A better busing solution is needed

A better busing solution is needed

This past month, the Austin- town School Board informed parents with students attending Ursuline High School, St. Christine, and Mollie Kessler schools that they will no longer provide Austintown busing to those respective schools, but rather provide vouchers for students to ride the Western Reserve Transit Authority buses starting the 2012-2013 school year. This decision, which I strongly oppose, may make it much more inconvenient and difficult for parents to send their children to private schools.

Austintown Superintendent Vince Colaluca argues that this decision was made based upon a cost analysis of busing private students to schools outside the township. However, his actions over the past year suggest he will use whatever option is on the table to increase the enrollment of Austintown schools. Unfortunately for private school students, this “administrative decision” may mean an unsupervised bus ride to school and arriving at school late each day.

In the June 9 Vindicator article, “Austintown student busing dispute heats up,” Colaluca seemed to be frustrated with the ability of Ursuline, Cardinal Mooney, and other private schools to market their schools and to attract students from suburbs such as Austintown. To combat that, the Austintown School Board authorized spending $35,000 to market the school district for one year.

A week after being notified by the Austintown school board that they were eliminating Austintown busing for these schools, private school parents in the district received a marketing letter from the district. The letter stated, “Our records indicate that some time ago you made a decision to withdraw your child from Austintown Local Schools…” This letter continued by saying that the Austintown School Board “wants you back.” It is evident that one way the district could do just that is by using strong arm tactics such as this to force parents into either sending their child to a private school via WRTA busing, or by simply choosing to enroll their children in the Austintown public schools.

A Vindicator article last July reported that the Austintown school board, despite cuts in funding, voted to authorize a $2,000 raise in Colaluca’s salary, increasing it to $97,000 at the time. It would have been one thing if Vince Colaluca and the board set a good example from the start and had truly been good tax stewards, as they have said on numerous occasions in the past month, but they chose to raise the pay of administrators during these tough times. As the saying goes, “actions speak louder than words.”

Michael Metzinger, Austintown