Smithtown questions contentious bus plan

The Smithtown Board of Education has taken tentative steps toward a new vote on a controversial plan to reduce busing.

The board will hold a special meeting at 8 p.m. Tuesday to address safety concerns and other issues raised by parents since district voters passed a referendum in May eliminating busing for hundreds of public and private school students. Parents say it puts children in danger by forcing them to walk to and from school, often on streets without sidewalks.

At a meeting Wednesday night, new board president Gladys Waldron said school district attorneys may be asked to draft a proposition reversing the busing cuts. But she stopped short of promising a new referendum, saying the board must "gather as much information as board members need" before calling a vote.

"We have to follow a process," she said in an interview.

The May referendum increases by a half-mile the distances students must live from school to receive busing. Voters took bus service from children in kindergarten through fifth grade living within a half-mile of school and those in sixth through 12th grades within 1.5 miles of school. The referendum also reduced -- from 20 miles to 15 -- the maximum distance that the district would provide busing for private school students.

The proposition passed by 800 votes out of 7,000 cast. The changes will save $800,000, district officials say.

Nearly 3,000 residents have signed petitions calling for a new vote. The school board last month rejected the petitions.

But with new board members Grace Plourde and Joanne McEnroy -- who in May defeated incumbents Robert Rossi and Neil Carlin -- and the election of Waldron to replace Rossi as president, the board on Wednesday appeared more receptive to holding a new vote.

Plourde said the May referendum "lacks the kind of legitimacy that it needs to get the support of the community."

Parents at Wednesday's meeting said district officials had failed to adequately study the effects of reduced busing before the May referendum.

"I'm glad a discussion is going to happen," said Jennifer Savickis of Kings Park, mother of three children. "However, that should have happened before the vote."

Waldron was elected president by a 5-2 vote Wednesday.