Sunnyside resident vows to continue to press suit against Department of Education on her son's behalf
View full sizeDespite a legal setback, Gina Sgarlato-Benfante plans to continue with a lawsuit against the Department of Education on behalf of her son, A.J. Benfante, 12, who is about to enter the seventh grade in a school that will not be getting yellow bus service. (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel) By JILLIAN JORGENSEN
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The Marsh Avenue Schools for Expeditionary Learning parent whose lawsuit against the Department of Education for bus service was stayed while she applied for a hazard variance has been denied one by the city agency -- and she plans to continue her suit.
Gina Sgarlato-Benfante, the parent and attorney who filed the suit, said she's convinced the variance was acted on only because she recently filed paperwork in court asking a judge to vacate the stay and allow the lawsuit to continue, rule that Ms. Sgarlato-Benfante had exhausted her other options or order the Department of Education's Office of Pupil Transportation to rule on the hazard variance for which she applied.
"We were going back there today to have the judge sign the paperwork to continue with my lawsuit, and then I got a call from the city" about the variance, she said.
The DOE contends there is a legality by which it can continue to deny bus service for
Lawmakers and others say there is no legality or "loophole": The DOE is simply being obstinate in excluding borough schools that didn't have the service in 2009, including Marsh Avenue and the Staten Island School for Civic Leadership. Marsh Avenue had a seventh-grade at the time but students were denied bus service.
While some education advocates said the DOE's justification for denying service at the time, when other schools had the buses, was that Marsh was a "choice school" that students across the borough could attend, other choice schools, like Petrides, are served by yellow buses.
Ms. Sgarlato-Benfante's variance was denied because the Office of Pupil Transportation said her son wouldn't have to take the bus from the busy corner of Clove Road and Victory Boulevard, but could take it at Victory Boulevard and Labau Avenue instead, avoiding the corner.
But the route still calls for her son A.J., 12, to walk more than eight-tenths of a mile just to get to that stop, along Beebe Avenue, where there are no sidewalks, down Ocean Terrace, and under the Staten Island Expressway in Sunnyside, according to the route OPT provided in the response to the variance, via the MTA Trip Finder tool.
"They don't even say anything about there being no sidewalk in front of my house," Ms. Sgarlato-Benfante said about the city's response to her variance request.
Once her son gets off the bus, he'll need to walk another quarter-mile to his school in New Springville.
The MTA Trip Planner itinerary OPT provides in the response suggests A.J. catch the S-61 at Victory and Labau at 6:46 a.m. -- after a walk it estimates will take about 18 minutes.
"My son has to walk, he still has to walk over a mile," she said. "He still has to walk under the Expressway."
Ms. Sgarlato-Benfante said she submitted a new "order to show cause" against the DOE Wednesday, seeking to continue the case while she appeals the hazard variance request. The order will be heard by a Manhattan judge Sept. 14, she said.
While the city had argued she should exhaust her other options before the suit continued -- which would include appealing the hazard variance -- Ms. Sgarlato-Benfant said they should be allowed to continue at the same time.
"I'm asking the judge to continue my lawsuit because in my eyes it's two different issues," she said. "My variance is based on a hazard. My lawsuit is based on the interpretation of the statute."
Ms. Sgarlato-Benfante's suit argues that the legislative intent of the law passed in the spring was to return service to all seventh- and eighth-grade students on Staten Island -- an argument that its authors, Assemblyman Michael Cusick (D-Mid-Island) and Sen. Andrew Lanza (R-Staten Island), have been making to the Department of Education all summer.