Parents, daycare owners tell Riverhead board district transportation changes are hurting providers; board approves transportation contracts and county grant MOA

Riverhead Central School District trustees heard multiple public comments Tuesday from daycare operators and parents who said the district is no longer transporting students to licensed daycares outside their assigned schools, a change they say has hurt small providers and working families. The board separately approved transportation contracts with Eastern Suffolk BOCES and extended a memorandum of agreement with Suffolk County to participate in a school-bus stop arm demonstration program covering July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026.

The public-comment speakers asked the board to reverse or clarify the practice. Frank Ford, who identified himself as a day-care owner in Flanders, said the district’s move “is hurting our daycare and it's ... been going on for 35 years.” Parent Joanne Barto said district transportation told her the restriction “has been a rule since 1993,” and called the current practice “a discrimination” because her daughter, who is 9, will not be bussed from the daycare to school without an individualized education program (IEP). An online commenter, Kelly Herrera Garcia of Riverhead, said: “please make changes in the transportation department. They are very rude when I called and they shouldn't be backed up every single year.”

Trustees did not take an immediate policy vote on day-care eligibility during the meeting. Instead, the board approved several transportation-related items on the consent agenda. The board accepted an MOA with Suffolk County to receive grant funds from the school-bus stop arm demonstration program for the 2025–26 year (agenda item approved by motion; mover: Miss Murphy; second: Doctor Gonzales; outcome: approved). The board also approved two Eastern Suffolk BOCES transportation contracts: one for summer school transport dated July 1, 2025, through Aug. 25, 2025, at an approximate cost of $26,600, and a second contract for the 2025–26 school year at an approximate cost of $1,314,300 (motion: Miss Murphy; second: Ms. Healy; outcome: approved).

Speakers at the microphone said the change affects providers that have long accepted Riverhead students and parents who work late hours and rely on evening and weekend care. Barto said she has four children who have used the same licensed daycare and that she works late hours, adding that moving her child to a different provider would create hardship for her family. Ford said several daycares in the room were similarly affected and urged the district to find a solution.

The public speakers described the transportation change as an operational enforcement rather than a formal policy change voted by the board; the meeting transcript records their accounts and claims but does not show a district staff response clarifying whether the practice is a new interpretation of an existing rule or an administrative enforcement decision. The board’s consent approvals mean the district will continue contracting with Eastern Suffolk BOCES for student transportation and will participate in the county’s stop-arm demonstration program, but the trustees did not announce any immediate action to alter bus eligibility for licensed daycares.

Parents and daycare operators who addressed the board asked for follow-up from district transportation staff; the meeting record does not show a scheduled staff report or a board directive to change the practice. The speakers’ statements about the length of previous practice (35 years) and the 1993 rule were presented as their recollections or what they were told by transportation staff, not as board findings or adopted policy.

The board adjourned after routine business. If parents or providers want district clarification or an administrative review, the meeting transcript does not record a timeline or a formal next step from the trustees.