Thomas Breen file photo
Catching the bus on the Green.
That state has awarded New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) $175,000 to continue providing its high school students with public bus passes not just to get to school and extracurriculars but now also to jobs, internships, and college courses, and then back home.
NHPS slide
How NHPS will spend public bus state funds.
Those funds come thanks to House Bill No. 5523, which the state legislature passed this year and which awarded New Haven and Hartford public schools with a $175,000 grant-in-aid each to provide high schoolers with CT Transit bus passes.
NHPS Supervisor of Magnet Grant Programs Michele Bonanno presented the city school district’s bus pass plan to the Board of Education Finance and Operations Committee on Aug 19. She provided that same presentation to the full school board on Aug. 26.
Bonanno noted during her presentation that NHPS has provided public bus passes to students in recent years. Last school year, she said, NHPS invested an estimated $130,000 for bus passes for students. Therefore, she said, NHPS welcomes and feels prepared to implement the state grant funds.
Schools spokesperson Justin Harmon confirmed for the Independent Friday that the district plans to continue its own financial investment in bus passes this year. He estimated that in the past NHPS served 3,160 students with its locally funded bus pass services.
In NHPS’ grant proposal, the district laid out plans to utilize the funding boost from the state to support student transportation to and from school, to transport students to extracurricular activities then home, to transport students from school to employment/internship programs, and to provide transportation to dual enrollment students needing to travel to college.
Bonanno said $100,000 will be spent to purchase two-hour bus passes to extracurriculars and $75,000 will be spent on 10-day bus passes for students to travel to school, local programs, and back home.
In recent years the district has provided two-hour bus passes to students to travel to extracurriculars or sporting events. Bonanno said schools like Sound School will continue its use of providing 10-day passes to students in need of traveling to school and back home almost daily.
“So we’ll continue that practice but we’ll be able to expand it with the additional funds to other high schools around the district,” she said.
Currently NHPS distributes bus passes for students by signing them out from local school district’s transportation department. With the new legislation, NHPS plans to establish a tracking system to better evaluate the district’s bus pass system. The transportation department will be working with the district’s data and research department to design the electronic data tracking system to now track the number of students participating in this program, the type of service they are receiving, and the total amount of money being invested per student.
Board of Education Vice President Matt Wilcox asked NHPS Supervisor of Student Transfers and Transportation Sequella Coleman if the increased bus pass funding could save the district transportation dollars for its regular busing services. Coleman said it will not due to public transit bussing not having the same bus routes as the district’s transportation services.
Bonanno added that rather than students getting a bus ride home through NHPS-provided transportation, they would instead have to potentially take several public transit buses to get home.
Wilcox concluded that the plans to increase tracking and data collection for the bus pass usage can help the district to show the value of the investment.
