St. Anselm Parents Start Petition Drive To Get Their Kids Back on School Bus

January 26, 2012 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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Bay Ridge — With no resolution of their dilemma in sight, parents of Saint Anselm Catholic School students have started an on-line petition to garner support for their fight to bring back bus service for their children.

Parents are hoping that if enough people sign the petition at www.ipetitions.com it will put pressure of officials at the New York City Department of Education (DOE) to restore bus service to students in the upper grades at St. Anselm School.

As the Bay Ridge Eagle reported, students in the seventh and eighth grades were informed on Jan. 6 that they were no longer permitted to ride the yellow school bus to and from school as they had been doing all through their years at St. Anselm School.

School bus service was eliminated citywide for students beyond the sixth grade, according to officials at the Dept. of Education. The St. Anselm students were issued Metrocards and instructed to take public transportation to the school, located at 365 83rd St.

But Kathy Leone, whose daughter is a seventh grader at St. Anselm School, said the lack of transportation is a hardship for her family and for other families who live outside Bay Ridge. “Our children have never taken public transportation with us, never mind by themselves,” said Leone, who lives in Carroll Gardens.

There are 11 children in the seventh and eighth grades at the school who have been banned from riding the bus.

Leone said she chose to enroll her daughter at St. Anselm School because transportation was being provided. Her daughter would have to take the F train and then transfer to the R train to get to school, she said.

For now, parents of seventh and eighth graders are taking turns car-pooling their children to and from school.

— Paula Katinas