150 Stoughton students initially denied bus transport get bus spots

The 150 students who were initially denied spots on Stoughton school buses will now have rides to school without cutting funding from classrooms or staffing, the district announced Monday.

Stoughton Public Schools walked back their initial announcement that 150 students, or about 10 percent of the students who applied by the district’s deadline, would not receive bus transportation to and from school. 

The School Committee announced Monday that the district will add one additional bus, which will be “a double run, meaning this one bus will be doing two runs each for the morning and afternoon commutes.”

Superintendent Joseph Baeta said at the meeting Tuesday night the bus routes on the double runs will be about 15 to 20 minutes late in the afternoons.

“This is solely for the start of the school year,” he said. “In other words, once we have everybody on the buses, and we start to see the changes that take place in the first two weeks, three weeks, we will update this with parents and families on a regular basis.”

Katherine Weiss, the chair of the Stoughton School Committee, said at Tuesday night’s meeting that Stoughton’s school population is “rapidly growing.”

Weiss said the additional bus cost $79,000. She said two recent resignations in the district’s central office resulted in savings to fund the additional bus. No classrooms were affected by the rearranging of the budget.

“Transportation costs have been going up for several years. We’ve known this. This has been something we’re wrestling with, both for the general population and the special ed population, both within district and out of district,” Weiss said.

The School Committee considered approving an administrative hiring freeze to continue to stay within their budget but decided to discuss it further later in September.

The district will contact students now placed on buses and other students whose bus routes were changed due to the additional buses.

Superintendent addresses “nastiness,” “misinformation”

Baeta also acknowledged “misinformation and narratives that are both nasty and absolutely unfounded,” seemingly referring to the idea that migrant children living in shelters and hotels received bus transport at the expense of other students in the district.

The state funded the two additional buses for children from the state shelter system, the district said last week. Last week, the Boston Herald reported on the issue with the headline: “Hundreds of Stoughton students without bus service, as Massachusetts funds buses for migrants.”

“It is unfortunate that outside of Stoughton, and I want to be clear, outside of Stoughton, the nastiness and the commentary that’s taken place is just defined by the word absurd,” Baeta said. “I’ll leave it at that.”