Updated at 3:55 p.m. — A pilot program for busing private school students using MCPS buses and drivers will cost the county $240,560 for the 2014-2015 school year.
The County Council on Tuesday approved taking the money out of the county’s Mass Transit fund after a public hearing in which private school officials, parents and students talked of the overwhelming success of the pilot so far.
Nobody testified against the program, which was initiated in part by District 19 Del. Bonnie Cullison.
“The fact is that 20 percent of Montgomery County’s children don’t go to public schools,” Cullison told the Council. “Their cars and minivans are in some of our busiest intersections.”
The program started last fall and grew to include six schools: the Norwood School at 8821 River Road, the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy and St. Jude Regional Catholic School in Rockville and the Torah School of Greater Washington, Yeshiva of Greater Washington and St. Francis International School in Silver Spring.
The pilot required coordination with the public school system to make sure buses and drivers weren’t needed at the same time for public school students.
County Executive Isiah Leggett wrote in a memo asking for the $240,000 that he supported the pilot “in order to reduce peak hour automobile trips on County roads.”
The private schools involved contributed $43,285 for the program.
Father John Enzler, president and CEO of the Catholic Charities of Washington, told the Council to imagine the busy River Road intersection with Bradley Boulevard without private school parents driving their kids back and forth from school each day. The area is home to five non-public schools.
“This is not an entitlement,” Enzler said. “This is really actually a chance to make something happen that helps all of the people in our county.”
Eric Osberg, an administrator at Bethesda’s Stone Ridge School, said the school is interested in joining the pilot program. Stone Ridge is located at the intersection of Cedar Lane and Rockville Pike, one of the county’s most notoriously clogged areas.
Its proximity to NIH and the Naval base that includes the Walter Reed hospital has earned the intersection the title of most congested in recent traffic studies.
Osberg said Stone Ridge provides a shuttle bus to the Metro and is partnering with two other schools on a bus service that has low ridership.
“As a small school with students living all across the county, not just in Bethesda, it’s really impossible for us to design routes that accommodate them all,” Osberg told the Council. “I was excited about this pilot program.”
Councilmember Roger Berliner recommended the Council approve the budget appropriation for the pilot with the caveat that it would take a more detailed look at the program if it continues next school year.
“It’s also true that there will be questions about this program,” Berliner said. “Can we make it better? There are overarching policy questions that do arise.”
Chuck Short, a special assistant to Leggett, said the recommended FY 16 budget will probably keep the pilot program at six schools next school year, though Leggett had hoped to expand it.
“We probably won’t expand given our financial situation,” Short said.
The county will have the additional challenge of dealing with 20-minute later start times for MCPS next fall. The change will reduce the amount of open windows for MCPS buses and drivers to be available for private school use.
“The school system’s decision on bell time changes will negatively affect this pilot,” Short said. “It will reduce the number of surplus bus time that has been available this year because the window between different schools opening narrows. We’re going to be going over it the next couple of months and working real hard to bridge that gap.”
