Reuvain Borchardt

An initiative by the Lakewood Student Transportation Authority to place students from multiple yeshivos on shared bus routes could shorten commutes, allow kids more sleep, and make busing available to hundreds of additional students. But it’s raising objections from some roshei mosdos and parents who worry that their children will be spending time on the bus with those from schools and homes of laxer standards.

The LSTA began combining routes for a limited number of elementary schools last year.

“As road conditions get heavier and we have more and more territory to cover, we need to do something to earn some time back,” LSTA Director Rabbi Avraham Krawiec told The Voice in an interview. “The obvious conclusion is that when you have neighboring schools that have the same schedule, you join routes to make them take less time and to allow more students to have more efficient busing.”

Krawiec said 10 school buildings were on combined routes last year, and complaints were limited. But for the upcoming school year he has vastly expanded the combo program, affecting 67 elementary, high-school, and mesivta buildings.

Krawiec cites an example of two neighboring schools that previously each filled half a bus with students from Lakewood Commons, then completed the routes with stops elsewhere. This year, students from both schools who live in Lakewood Commons will share one bus.

He also cited two neighboring mesivtas whose buses each spent approximately 45 minutes traveling through the same neighborhoods. This year, LSTA will combine the schools and divide the routes by neighborhood rather than by mesivta. Krawiec estimates that the trips will take approximately 30 minutes, giving the students 15 additional minutes of sleep.

Krawiec said the combined routes will also allow LSTA to provide busing to hundreds of additional students this year.

Who shares the bus?

 

But with the onset of the school year and the sharp increase in the combined routes, the complaints are rising sharply as well.

Several members of yeshivah administrations spoke with The Voice (all on condition that pseudonyms would be used) expressing varying levels of disagreement or apprehension. One supported the concept but objected to how it was implemented, another had reservations but supported it on balance, a third was sharply opposed, and another called it a “himmel geshrei.”

Yitzy, the rosh mosad of one elementary school whose routes are being combined with those of another that he feels has “very different hashkafos,” said, “We wouldn’t send to camp together or daven in the same shul. We don’t want the kids interacting on a daily basis to and from school on long bus rides, sitting together and sharing information.”

Yitzy says his talmidim come from homes with stricter standards in areas like technology and dress than the school his has been paired with, and he’s worried that “they’ll become friendly with kids that are in a very different sevivah.”

A father of a mesivta bachur said he had not yet been made aware as to whether his child would be combined with another school or not, but that he opposed the program.

“Parents send children to specific yeshivos because we want a specific chinuch and environment for them,” the parent said. “Every parent and mechanech knows that the bus is the least supervised and most hefker place during the day, and introducing even more variables parents can’t control is not right.”

Yitzy says his rabbanim have instructed him that “we cannot let our children go on these buses” and that if the combination plan goes through, he’ll have to get a final psak about how many kids from the other school the rabbanim will allow to be on a bus with their own students. And if there are more than that, Yitzy says “we might start private vans or carpooling.”

Another option, he says, would be placing monitors on the buses to ensure that students from the two schools sit separately. With dozens of routes, however, that would be difficult and expensive.

Krawiec counters that “we were very sensitive with deciding which schools to combine.”

“The reality on the ground,” he says, “is that, unfortunately, we have to transition from a school-specific system to a full-fledged four-town transportation system servicing 167 schools.”

“There is a challenge, and we need to adjust,” he says. “We’re rolling out this new paradigm to simply have a fighting chance to get your kids to and from school on time. Going forward, we believe this is the only sustainable path.”

Consultation vs. control

 

Shmully, a member of the administration of a mesivta that’s being combined with another he deems to have weaker talmidim, agrees that a combination program is necessary. But he argues that pairings should have been made only upon consultation with and approval from each yeshivah’s rosh yeshivah or menahel.

“This is a real hashkafah question,” he argues. “Just like the rosh yeshivah has the right to decide who should and shouldn’t be in his yeshivah, the bus ride is a chelek of the chinuch. The fact that this was done without consulting with the people who are responsible for the chinuch of our children is worrisome.”

Yanky and Shmully, whose schools are both small, believe the larger and more powerful schools have been combined with those on a similar level, while smaller ones have at times been forced to join with those on a lower level.

Krawiec rejects that characterization. He wouldn’t get into a discourse over whether a particular school is equal to or of lower level than another but reiterates that “for schools of all sizes, we were very sensitive with deciding which schools to combine.”

He says the LSTA “invited input” at a meeting with roshei mesivta but it was “not tenable” to give them veto power over their routes.

“We’re one system for 167 schools,” he says. “We can’t run 167 separate systems.”

When schedules collide

 

Dovid runs a mesivta whose routes are being combined with those of several schools he considers broadly similar. His concern is logistical rather than hashkafic.

“Now that our routes are combined with other mesivtas, we’re not the only customer,” he says. “We have to coordinate our schedule with other mesivtas. And if we want to give an off-Shabbos one week and they want to give an off-Shabbos another week, how is that going to work?”

But Dovid says he feels these complications may be worthwhile if the combo will allow his talmidim to get more sleep in the morning and more of them get put on bus routes.

“I’m apprehensive about the new system because it’s new,” he says, “but I don’t have a strong feeling yet.”

Krawiec says realities of the system make the combinations necessary, and “we’re going to ask schools to work together to try their best to align schedules.”

He says multiple schools have busing this year for the first time, and he believes that would not have been possible if not for their being combined with other mosdos.

“We know this is a new system; there will be bumps in the road, and it will take time to settle,” he says. “But sitting back and not doing anything is not an option. I believe it will succeed, but if we fail, I’d rather fail trying something than doing nothing.”

Where the lines are drawn

 

Several people we spoke with commented that in other communities, yeshivos are much more integrated than in Lakewood, and a little less segregation here wouldn’t be a terrible thing.

Yitzy says that might be a valid broader argument, but that “the matzav today in Lakewood is that everything is separate. When you have one school very closed-minded and one open-minded, the differences can’t meet at this point.”

 

As Lakewood and its school system continue to grow, so will its transportation challenges.

The buses are about to roll out for 2026–2027, bringing tens of thousands of children to school. The new combo program means they may have gotten on a bus route for the first time, be better rested, and become exposed to kids they’d have never met before.

The debate, like the new school year, is just beginning.