Schools

Complaints of Unsafe Bus Stops Lead Northport to Create Transportation Committee

School District re-evaluating pick-up and drop-off spots.

After receiving multiple complaints and appeals from parents, stating that their children’s bus stops are unsafe, a transportation committee was created to re-evaluate the sites. 

Michelle DeChiaro, who lives on Bread and Cheese Hollow Road, used to have her young children picked up in front of her house. However, the school district changed its transportation policy this year, using a new computer system to create the sites and eliminated all house stops. DeChiaro’s bus stop was moved to the corner of Bread and Cheese Hollow Road and Cumberland Street in the change. She told the board that her children must now walk along the heavily trafficked road that has no shoulder or sidewalk to the blind corner. She added that in the winter, the road is last to be plowed and cars often can’t stop at the corner due to the road conditions. 

“They will be hit by a car either walking to the bus stop or waiting for me to put them on the bus,” she told the board.

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The Board of Education and the district’s transportation department, headed by Trish McGrane, has received multiple complaints similar to De Chiaro’s since parents received notification of their children’s bus stops before the start of classes.

Caryn Athanasio, whose three children were given the same bus stop, said that she sent a letter to the transportation department Aug. 28, but only received a generic response, stating that it was her responsibility to get her children to their bus stop. 

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“It’s not going to be if a child gets hit, it’s going to be when,” Athanasio said.

Superintendent Marylou McDermott said the committee, which is made up of two administrators, two parents and two people from the transportation department, will be visiting each of the stops that parents have sent in concerns about in the order that the appeals were received to determine if the stop is safe.

If the stop is deemed unsafe, parents will be notified that day and the stop will be moved to a safe location, McDermott said.

“We’re trying to move on this as quickly as possible,” the superintendent said.

McDermott said that there are a handful of roads in the district that are the committee’s priority, including Bread and Cheese Hollow Road, 25A, and Sandy Hollow Road.


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