ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Hundreds of frustrated residents descended on the Allentown school board Thursday night. Dozens were unable to enter due to fire code restrictions.
Many of them were from a business called First Student, where 47 bus monitors were recently laid off.
- ASD cut funding for First Student bus monitors
- Many of the employees say student safety could be at risk with the move
- The school district is trying to reduce costs for the next fiscal year
The company is under contract to provide transportation to students from the Allentown School District with special needs students, and those attending charter schools, private and religious schools, and Lehigh Career and Technical Institute and Lehigh Carbon Community College.
“I find the monitor job really important because of my poor mother. She is a monitor at First Student and it just breaks my heart to see that she has to lose her job."Student Christian Lugo
Some in the room teared up when 12-year-old Christian Lugo asked Superintendent Carol Birks and the school board to save his mom, Rosa’s, job.
“I find the monitor job really important because of my poor mother,” he said. “She is a monitor at First Student and it just breaks my heart to see that she has to lose her job and risk everything to become a driver to take care of me.”
District officials said when they looked into the 115 bus routes for "efficiencies," they found that 47 monitors were not legally required to be on those buses because those children did not have an Individualized Education Plan, or 504 Plan.
Deputy Superintendent Jen Ramos said that students with special needs will continue to have a bus monitor on their bus or will be transferred to a bus with a monitor.
Rosa Lugo, Christian’s mom, said she hoped the district will continue to fund the current number of bus monitors of because of her concerns about student safety. She said students often act up on the bus and one day she found a little girl at the back of the bus playing with a letter opener.
“Somebody's got to be there,” Rosa said. “There is no reason to do this. Just for money. I'm sure you have plenty of money. Not me, I'm empty. I have to find a new job.”
Superintendent Carol Birks said it was First Student, not the Allentown School District, who decided to lay off the bus monitors. She said the district told the company it would no longer need bus monitors for general education students and First Student cut the positions because of that. She said charter schools were given the chance to take over funding for some of those positions and chose not to do that.
“Continuing on with bus monitors, that is a management right of First Student,” she said. “Because they can continue to employ you if they want to.”
Cristaliz Rivera said her daughter is autistic and non-verbal. She said her daughter has serious behavioral issues that require close monitoring. She had peace of mind that her child was cared for by her bus driver and bus monitor, but now her daughter is being transferred to a new bus with a new driver. That bus will have a monitor.
“And I don’t know if they’re going to be one of the bus drivers who sometimes don’t feel like picking up my daughter,” Rivera said. “It’s stressful and I’m pissed.”
Rivera said she was only learned about the change from her daughter’s bus driver, and was not informed by the district or her teacher. She said she is worried that her daughter could run from the bus and be hit by a car.
“A lawsuit is not going to give me my daughter back,” she said. “If something happens to my daughter or some other child.”
The district said these efficiencies will save about $2.5 million. A budget presentation on Thursday night for the next fiscal year showed a new transportation plan to take back the operation of the bus routes as a cost-saving measure, transporting early intervention students, prioritizing transporting ASD students who have to walk more than a half mile to school and using LANTA for charter, private and religious students.
