Ford parents: Revisit kindergarten busing plan

LYNN – Ford School parents are gathering signatures to challenge a School Committee-approved plan to ease Ford, Brickett and Tracy School overcrowding by busing kindergartners out of the schools starting in September.Ford parents Diane Babbin and Deborah Hines said the plan to bus about 250 kindergartners between the schools and the 90 Commercial St. administration building poses problems if bad weather delays school buses or other problems crop up.?There?s no way for me to get him, and I can?t send a 5-year-old home in a cab,” Babbin said.Babbin?s son will enter kindergarten in Ford next year and she has a daughter attending the school?s second-grade.School Committee voted 7-0 on April 23 to approve the “early childhood center” plan after Superintendent Catherine Latham warned that Brickett, Ford and Tracy are dealing with classroom overcrowding problems expected to worsen next year.Committee members did not take up a motion on their May 9 agenda to revisit the kindergarten plan, and Ford parents want the committee to hold a public hearing on the plan and discuss it again.?We want our kindergartners to stay at the school,” Babbin said.View a map of the schools to be bused. Click on each icon for more informationView Overcrowded Lynn schools to bus kindergarten students off campus in a larger mapSchool administrators as a rule keep a close eye on classes with 30 or more students. The May school enrollment report listed three classes with 30 students in Brickett and three in Ford.The problem is more severe in Tracy, with five classrooms of 30 or more students.Tracy Principal Pattye Griffin warned committee members last week that Tracy will have two 35-student fifth-grades next year if the school?s space problem is not eased.She called the kindergarten plan “not the best solution, but workable.”?I have to be looking at the education of my kids; for us, it?s a do-or-die situation,” she said.The early childhood center is slated to occupy second-floor space in the 90 Commercial St. building now housing school administration offices and Lynn Vocational Technical Institute programs.Administration offices are slated to move to the former Ford School annex building on Bennett Street, freeing up spaces, Latham said, for 10 kindergarten classrooms in 90 Commercial St. Moving students to the building will, in turn, free up classroom space in the three schools to ease overcrowding.?I think it?s a good plan,” said Tracy parent Patricia Rodriguez.Rodriguez said her daughter, Cassandra, needs help focusing on her first-grade lessons and Rodriguez is worried that help will not be available if overcrowding in Tracy is not alleviated.But Ford parent Deborah Hines is worried a plan to transport kindergartners by bus to and from the three schools to 90 Commercial will reduce parent contact with teachers, especially for parents who do not have cars.?Putting 100 or so (Ford) 5-year-old children on a bus across town and busing them back to their neighborhood school is not a good idea,” Hines said.Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].