To the editor:

The Barrington School Committee is failing to comply with the RI law and thereby putting our students in grades K-5 at risk.

Our current School Committee has received multiple emails regarding the absence of a bus monitor for our kindergarten through grade 5 students since January 2019. We have seen this as a concern particularly on Bus 8 that services K-5 runs to both Sowams and Hampden Meadows School. It is the RI law, Chapter 16-21, Health and Safety of Pupils Section 16-21-1 that states a School Committee needs to provide school bus monitors, other than the bus driver on all school-bound and home-bound K-5 routes.   

Following the emails, the school administration has posted the position for bus monitors but has failed to provide an adequate safety plan in the interim. This has been an ongoing concern with the district's inability to secure bus monitors.

Currently the School Committee has requested an additional $246,000 in funds per year to support a two-tier bus system. This means the School Committee is requesting 3 additional buses and 3 additional monitors for each bus for the purpose of implementing the later start time initiative for high school students so they can start school later.  

Currently we are not utilizing the funds budgeted for the bus monitors at this time. My concern as a parent is that they are implementing an even earlier start time for kindergarten to grade 5 students than what is currently in place.

This raises many more safety concerns for our youngest students who will be loading and unloading buses as well as crossing streets in the dark with an absence of bus monitors to ensure safety especially in areas with heavy traffic.  

If the School Committee is currently struggling to comply with the state law with providing bus monitors with less buses, how will they adequately provide 3 additional bus monitors with the 3 additional buses needed for a two-tier system.

Gina Pine
Barrington

Editor's note: Barrington Superintendent of Schools Michael Messore said he spoke with officials in the RI Department of Education commissioner's office and with the RIDE operations supervisor in the transportation office and was told that Barrington is in compliance with the department of education as long as it continues to seek out new bus monitors and also files a monthly report with the department of education for any buses that operated without a monitor.