Penn Hills School District defends decision to cut transportation for nearby charter schools

Penn Hills School District will no longer provide school bus transportation to five charter schools, instead, they will offer Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus passes, in an effort to cut back on district costs.

Friday, Penn Hills defended the cuts.

“Our priority, and I’ll say this repeatedly, is to transport district kids first,” said Penn Hills CFO John Zahorchak.

Penn Hills School District will save more than $400,000 by cutting the five bus routes below:

• Life Male STEM Academy
• Westinghouse Arts Academy Charter School
• Propel Andrew Street High School
• Propel Braddock Hills
• Environmental Charter School

Steve Clarey and his wife sent their daughters to Propel Braddock Hills after Penn Hills School District was deemed low-performing. The district guaranteed transportation.

“Why am I paying taxes when I’m not getting the use of my tax dollars?” Clarey asked.

Propel’s first day of class is Aug. 15 and they, too, learned about the cuts just last week.

“Our parents are outraged they can’t believe that the Penn Hills School district would wait this late to notify them of these changes, and they feel like it is a direct ploy to get them to withdraw their student from a Propel school,” said Sonya Meadows, senior director of communications for Propel Schools.

Parent Dontay Kyles wrote to the district pleading with them to reconsider.

“Every year we get a phone call from Penn Hills asking if we want our kids to go to Penn Hills,” Kyles said.

His children will have to catch one Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus downtown and another to school, which is a safety concern.

Penn Hills Superintendent John Mozzocio told us the decision impacts only a handful of families and said:

“Parents can enroll their children at a school where the district provides busing, or they can drive their children to school, which some parents already do. Again, student safety was considered at every step in the process.”

Parents we spoke with disagree.

“It’s unsafe for them to be downtown, and what I want to know is, would they send their kids on PRT early in the morning?” Kyles said.

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