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Councilman Street presses Colonial School District after bus cancellations, urges after-action review
Summary
Councilman Street said Colonial School District failed to provide bus service for developments in his district over two days, leaving some students unable to attend; he called for complaints, an after-action review with school districts and DelDOT, and suggested district consolidation as a long-term fix.
Councilman Street used his council-member comment time at the Jan. 27 Finance Committee meeting to raise a complaint about the Colonial School District’s handling of bus service during recent snow events. He said he received reports that the district did not provide service to 11 developments on Sunday and that additional developments were added later, leaving children without transportation for two days.
"If they think they're gonna get away with locking my kids out of school for 2 days ... they're sadly mistaken," Street said, expressing anger and frustration and vowing to pursue the matter until the district provides assurances that it will not recur. He called the situation "fundamentally unfair" and said he would not "sit idly by."
The chair and other councilmembers discussed broader logistical problems in vulnerable communities, including limited snow-removal capacity and distribution of district-owned iPads that were not collected after COVID and therefore unavailable for virtual instruction after the storm. One member urged an after-action report involving Colonial, other school districts and the Delaware Department of Transportation to identify vulnerable communities and plan for future storms.
Street also criticized neighboring districts for not providing makeup transportation and advocated, as a longer-term solution, consolidation of multiple Northern New Castle County school districts into one, a proposal he acknowledged would face political obstacles at the state level. The committee took no formal action on the complaint during the meeting.
