Rockville Centre officials propose schedule and routing changes to cut four buses, trim rising costs

Jackie Rehak, who led the district’s yearlong review of routes and ridership, presented a transportation redesign on June 16 that would reduce the number of contracted large buses by four and change school and late‑bus schedules to increase reuse of buses across runs.

Rehak told the Board the plan is an operational reconfiguration, not a change to student eligibility for busing, which would require voter approval. "This proposal... would reduce our current fleet by about four buses. The estimated savings on going down four buses in 2026‑27 would be about $310,000," she said.

Why it matters: the district’s primary contractor, Guardian, has said it will not extend its contract beyond 2026–27, and staff told the board that districts often encounter large price increases when contracts renew. Rehak said the district used a 40% contract increase assumption for planning and a 4% annual CPI for later years. Using those assumptions, staff projected a cumulative difference of about $6.3 million in avoided cost growth over 10 years under the proposed model compared with keeping the current routing model.

Key changes in the proposal include shifting middle‑school start and end times 15 minutes later (proposed middle school start 7:50 a.m., end 2:57 p.m.) so some high‑school buses can be reused for middle and elementary runs; consolidating high‑school late‑bus service into three hourly departure times (about 3:30, 4:30 and 5:30 p.m.) with a single bus per time; and rotating elementary after‑school club days so fewer late elementary runs are required.

Rehak said the proposed schematic preserves the same number of daily runs (23) but would drop the number of buses in service from 16 to 12 in the illustrative model by reusing four high‑school buses for later runs.

Staff emphasized that athletics and private/parochial routes (for St. Agnes, Sacred Heart, Kellenberg, Chaminade and others) would continue to be served; some of those routes are already full and are not candidates for consolidation.

Implementation: Guardian began dry runs the week of the meeting to test the proposed routing. Rehak said staff will continue summer communication and will adjust plans based on practice runs; a parent meeting focused on the middle‑school changes is scheduled for the middle‑school library next Monday at 6 p.m.

Concerns and mitigations: board members raised several operational and equity concerns — notably that a proposed single late bus at the middle school could limit students’ ability to participate in sports or after‑school activities if timing does not match practice/game end times. Rehak said ridership on current late buses is very low and staff will revisit late‑bus timing and examine whether middle‑school buildings can open earlier or expand breakfast supervision by 15 minutes so families are not adversely affected by the schedule shift.

Other topics the board asked staff to study further include coordination with village crossing guards and police around new arrival and dismissal times; a review of the district’s lighting and field‑use policy to allow additional on‑site practices (staff proposed extending light use to 9 p.m. Monday–Friday while limiting music earlier in the evening); and a preliminary cost comparison of buying versus leasing buses and the implications of fleet electrification (staff noted the district is preparing a state‑required fleet electrification plan with consultant Wendel).

Next steps: staff will complete dry‑run testing with Guardian, finalize any schedule refinements (particularly to better align middle‑school late buses with practices/games), continue summer outreach to families, and return with updated implementation details for board review. No board vote on the redesign was recorded at the June 16 meeting.