Dist. 300 may cut bus aides

Most Community Unit District 300 preschoolers would ride to school and back home without a bus aide next year under a plan presented to the school board Monday.

Officials said District 300 is one of the few districts that has aides for preschoolers and that removing 12 aides could save the district more than $400,000.

"The board should reduce the number of bus aides for the deLacey run," Superintendent Ken Arndt said. "We don't need as many as we have had in the past year or two."

The reduction in bus aides would mainly affect children at the deLacey Family Education Center in Carpentersville, which serves at-risk and special-needs preschoolers.

Therese Cronin, principal at deLacey, has been working with district transportation staff on the bus aide proposal, which she supports.

"We will be able to provide just as much of a safe environment for our children," Cronin said. "We're not taking all of the aides off of all of the buses. If there is a situation that needs an aide, there will be an aide on that bus."

Cronin and her staff will work with the transportation department to determine which routes should have bus aides.

"On some of the runs, you're still going to have aides based on the unique disabilities," Arndt said. "It all depends on their severity."

The school board could vote on the bus aide proposal at its next meeting on July 27, Arndt said.

A district panel proposed the bus aide reductions last month. The board is also considering eliminating its current gifted program.

District officials scrapped proposed reductions in physical education because they would have violated state guidelines.