Transportation Practices for Private School Parents

Out of District Visitors
Rose Tree Media School District Transportation Department will not bus students from other school districts to your home. In the event your private school child wishes to have a friend come home with them who is not an RTM resident, other transportation arrangements should be made for the out of district student to visit your home. They will not be permitted to board an RTM school bus.

In District Visitors
If your child wants to get off the bus with another student at a stop other than the one assigned to your child or if another student wants to get off the bus at your child's stop, a note signed by the parent, given to, and signed by the principal, must be given to the bus driver, or your child or the other student will not be permitted to disembark the bus at a stop other then the one assigned to him or her.

RTM Two Hour Delay
In the event RTM has a two hour delay due to inclement weather, RTM will transport Private school students two hours later. In the event the private school has a two hour delay and RTM is operating on a regular schedule, RTM will not transport to the private school two hours later.

Emergency Closings
In the event RTM calls an early closing due to inclement weather, RTM transportation will pick up at the private schools as soon as possible. Please do not call the transportation department during these times as the office staff is extremely busy contacting drivers and schools trying to coordinate dismissal for over 5000 students. Calling the office at this time ties up the phone lines and causes a delay in the dismissal process. In inclement weather, the bus will always be later than normal, sometimes up to an hour or more. Do not panic, your child is being safely transported by professionals and you will be notified in the event of a mishap.

Length of Bus Ride
Although the transportation department makes every attempt to minimize the length of time each student is on the bus, there is no law governing the amount of time a student is limited to being on a school bus. To be fiscally responsible, many private school bus runs have multiple schools combined onto one run  depending on location, distance, and the number of students attending the private schools, thus extending the time spent on the bus for the private school student.

Late to the Bus Stop
RTM requests that all students be at their bus stops five minutes before the bus is due to arrive. If your child misses the bus due to lateness, it is the parents' responsibility to provide transportation for the student. School buses are on a schedule and will not return to a bus stop for students who missed the bus due to lateness.

House Stops
If your bus stop happens to be at your home, make sure your student is waiting at the curb five minutes prior to the bus arriving. Students should not wait inside their front doors until the bus arrives. It is not the responsibility of the driver to look for your student or to wait for your student who is not at the curb when the bus arrives. Buses will not return to your stop if your child is not waiting at the curb.

House Stops and One Person Bus Stops
If your student is not at the bus stop for more then a week, the transportation department will assume that your child is no longer in need of our services and the bus service will stop. The bus will not continue to come down your street to an empty stop and will not resume until we receive a phone call requesting service to continue. In an effort to conserve fuel and taxpayer dollars, the transportation office ask that you notify us in the event your child will not need transportation by calling 610-627-6475.

Also, if your student is the only student attending a particular school, we ask that you call the transportation office if we did not transport your child to school and they need to be picked up at the end of the day. If we did not take your student to school, we would assume he or she did not go and we would not go to their school to pick them up, nor would we go back to a school to pick your student up if the school calls to say the bus never showed up for your student if we did not transport them to school.

If your student does not need a ride home from school, the transportation department also ask that you notify us in advance to prevent the bus from stopping at your child's school. This is not only a waste of time, but also a waste of fuel and taxpayer dollars.