March 28, 2005

 

YONKERS COUNTY LEGISLATORS CALL FOR COOLING OFF
PERIOD IN LIBERTY BUS DISPUTE

County Legislators Jose Alvarado (D,IN,WF-Yonkers) and Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D,IN,WF-Yonkers) called today for a cooling off period in the Liberty Bus strike for the sake of Yonkers school children.

Both legislators stressed that the cooling off period is nothing more than their plea to union leaders and Liberty Lines to work out their differences at the bargaining table, perhaps with the help of a mediator, and did not amount to an endorsement of either side’s position.

“The only side I’m taking is on behalf of the stranded ridership which includes two thousand plus Yonkers school children,” said Legislator Stewart-Cousins. “Absenteeism for the five public high schools is running three times higher than the usual. That translates into thousands of instructional hours lost. In the climate of high-stakes tests like the Regents exams, how will these kids ever make up for this lost instructional time?”

Legislator Alvarado said both he and Stewart-Cousins decided to speak out in favor of a cooling off period after meeting with representatives of the Yonkers Education Advocates, a non-profit group that advocates for Yonkers schools, this morning.

“There is enormous pressure on these kids,” Alvarado said. “They’re dealing with the stress of calculus and physics, just like the other kids in public high schools in Westchester County, but are also dealing with the stress of chaos, of not being able to keep up. Unlike other communities, high school kids in Yonkers have the choice of five public high schools across the city. In many cases, kids must walk miles one-way to school. My feeling is that if kids in some other areas of the County were being asked to walk miles to school, there would have been a cooling off period long before now.”