RBC students left with­out ride to school By Sherry conohan Staff Writer MONMOUTH BEACH — Regina Stevenson has more of a scramble than usual this year as she prepares to send her children back to school. In addition to the new clothes, books and lunch box that appear on most parents’ shopping lists for the annual fall ritual, she’s looking for a bus. Stevenson, who lives in Monmouth Beach, received a letter from Shore Regional High School at the end of last month informing her that there will be no school bus to transport two of her children to Red Bank Catholic High School this year. In its place, she is being given $751 in transportation aid for each of the children for the school year and told to find another means of getting them to school in Red Bank. "I don’t want the money," she said. "I want the convenience of the bus." Families in Sea Bright who have children attending Red Bank Catholic High School received the same letter telling them there will be no school bus. Parents of children in both Monmouth Beach and Sea Bright who have children going to Holy Cross school in Rumson will also have no bus. And in Oceanport, there will be no bus to carry students to Christian Brothers Academy in the Lincroft section of Middletown. Shore Regional High School in West Long Branch, which has responsibility of coordinating bus service to the private and parochial schools attended by children living in its four sending districts, sent out the letters last week. Shore Regional works through the Monmouth-Ocean Educational Services Commission, which arranges and bids the routes. Leslie Shemeley, director of transportation for the agency, said the reason there will be no buses running from these towns to those schools is that nobody bid on them. "It’s probably a monetary issue. It usually is," she said. "We don’t have enough students to fill a bus and contractors don’t find it lucrative to bid on." In the case of Holy Cross, for instance, there were only 27 children from Monmouth Beach and Sea Bright. She said they tried to devise the route in other ways, including combinations with other towns, but would end up with too many students for one bus, but not enough for another. "Basically, it’s lower enrollment," she said. "We usually don’t get bids on [partially filled] buses." Nick Cammarano, business administrator for the Shore Regional Board of Education, said it was his understanding that the commission put the Red Bank Catholic route out to bid twice, without success. He said the school district has to let parents know by Aug. 1 if there will be no bus so they can make other plans. Stevenson said there was a bus last year to take her son to Red Bank Catholic, where he will be a sophomore this fall. This year, her daughter will be a freshman at Red Bank Catholic too. Stevenson also has an older daughter, who will be a senior at Shore Regional. She said there are 54 students in Monmouth Beach and Sea Bright who need transportation to Red Bank Catholic, and she observed that if they were students at Shore Regional, the high school district would have to provide a bus for them. There was also a bus last year carrying children from Monmouth Beach to Holy Cross, but at least one parent complained about the route last year when it was announced. The bus picked up the children in Monmouth Beach, then went to Highlands to collect children there and got to Holy Cross 45 minutes after starting out in Monmouth Beach. It reversed the route in the afternoon. As a working parent, Stevenson said, it will be difficult to get her children to school. She said she was thinking of trying to organize the parents of the Red Bank Catholic students into finding a bus on their own, using their $751 in aid. "I don’t know just yet what I’m going to do," she said, noting that carpooling would be difficult because "all of us have different lives." "I’m probably going to end up driving and picking up my own kids, and every day is going to be a difficult juggle," she said. "It just doesn’t seem fair. My taxes have gone up so much in town. "I’m just so upset. I don’t know who to turn to at this time," she said. "I’m fed up with it."