Austintown, private schools talk about busing options
Youngstown
Administrators with the Youngstown Catholic Diocese, Youngstown Christian and Austintown schools met Tuesday with the Western Reserve Transit Authority to discuss the ongoing issue of busing students outside the Austintown school district.
Austintown Superintendent Vincent Colaluca said the group of administrators attended a closed meeting to continue discussion on Austintown’s proposal to offer public-transit vouchers to private-school students instead of using district vehicles.
Austintown’s proposal, announced to parents in May, would affect students at St. Christine, Ursuline and Mollie Kessler beginning this fall. Youngstown Christian School went through the same process with Austintown schools last year. School officials and parents there fought the decision and said none of their students uses WRTA.
Mike Pecchia, president of Youngstown Christian Schools, said previously that the original plan to send students on a pre-existing WRTA route was an unsafe option.
But Pecchia said after Wednesday’s meeting that he’s confident a resolution favorable to all sides will be reached.
“I felt like both sides heard each other. I think we’re trying to figure out a way to resolve this,” he said. “We’ve got some work to do on it. ... But there was a willingness to sit down and come up with a solution.”
Comments
Sounds like a pedophile's dream. Just get on the bus and wait for kids to come to you.
Doesn't take a genius to see that's a horrible idea, and no surprise why none of the students use the WRTA option.
Vincent Colaluca is a huge asswipe. I hope nothing happens to those poor kids, and if something does he should be held personally responsible and ran the hell out of town.
Unfortunately all the public school students are having to deal with cutbacks and less and less available to them. Doesn't it just seem fair that the private school students share in those losses as well? Whether its loss of a specialty teacher such as a gym or art teacher, or your bus driver, ALL students are going to experience a loss with the cuts of funding in education. Perhaps its time to put the blame where it belongs, on our government, and not the Austitown Super who is obviously stuggling to make money stretch while trying to protect his public school children.
Protecting public school children by putting private school children in harms way is not the answer and he knows it. He's just being a prick and refuses to cut spending in places where spending SHOULD be cut.