During public comment at Thursday night’s BOE meeting a Western Middle School 7th grader, Henry Tejeda, described the student experience of having 40 yellow school buses parked outside their classrooms.
It was a unique perspective, given much of the blowback has come from neighbors and what is visible to the eye: a destroyed field.
The challenge of finding a place or places to park school buses has been relentless for the district since last September.
The situation resulted from the move to save $1.9 by changing start times in a way that reduced the number of school bus routes – and taking a calculated risk on a new bus contract with DATTCO predicated on the district providing parking.
The disappointment of school buses damaging the field used during recess at Western follows eight years that students were without of their athletic fields after contamination was found in 2016.
It was as recent as December 2024 that the community celebrated the opening new athletic turf fields.
Henry Tejeda at BOE
Henry said the traffic at drop off and pick up has increased significantly due to the presence of buses, which he said prevented some students from getting into the building early for extra help.
“This inconveniences students and makes them much more late,” he said describing the congestion outside the building.
“It is not only an inconvenience for students, but for staff too,” Henry said, adding, “An accident a month ago actually happened with the buses and cars, and that was only a few cars and three buses occupying the front of the roundabout.”
He said a second concern was that the field next to the black top was being polluted by bus exhaust.
He said before buses were parked on the field it was healthy and easily traversable.
“Now, because the buses have come to WMS and trampled along the field, it has been reduced to a muddy field riddled with tire tracks.”
“Evidence proves that the students inhaling exhaust can lead to health risks,” he continued, adding, “Even if the buses leave, the field will mostly likely be out of commission for the another year.”
Henry also spoke about how the buses impact the school day.
“My last and possibly most important point is that the buses beeping throughout the day causes the students to lose focus. Multiple times throughout the day during classes, the buses will beep. And if a teacher is completely silent, it makes it seem almost as like there is another voice in speaking in the room. I know it especially well because it happens to me daily.”
Henry said he’d conducted a survey of 85 students, and 75 of them (91.5%), said they lost focus during class because of beeping buses.
He said the beeping took place during group work, silent reading, unit tests, and that it was unfair that students at Central and Eastern don’t have to face the same inconvenience.
He said if the buses are not removed, the beeping will impact students during SBA testing, which he said was considered to be the most important test of the school year.
“All these things mentioned are deteriorating the school, so which one will you prioritize? Saving money or allowing students to be treated to the proper education they were promised.”
Grace Natale who is co-president of WMS PTA and a parent who magneted her children into the school, said the situation was untenable.
“It’s been eight months since the school year began and eight months since we were told district buses being parked at Western and at all schools would be a temporary measure,” Natale said.
“We extended grace and have been incredibly, almost relentlessly patient. However it’s now April.”
Ms Natale said Friday was scheduled as career day and visitors would get to “see, hear, breathe in and smell for themselves the traffic congestion inducing disaster of a multitude of buses that is on the dual recess blacktop and W wing bus parking lot.”
She asked the board to move the buses away from Western and other schools, and move the ones at Western during upcoming standardized testing and the annual 8th grade promotion.
BOE chair Dr. Michael-Joseph Mecanti-Anthony said while there was no solution at the moment, he was especially grateful for Henry’s testimony, especially about students listening to loud beeping during upcoming standardized tests.
Board member Paul Cappiali said, “We’re all really killing ourselves to do it. The administration is spending a lot of time and energy and we know how important it is. We’re doing everything we can.”
“I myself have literally gone to areas I think could be promising, left notes on the door, spoken to people,” he said. “Thank you for your input – it inspires us.”
Ben Branyan said the arrangement with DATTCO had involved the district securing a space to park buses.
“At the time we were exploring a variety of different spaces, so we said said, let’s take a calculated risk. Now we know where that risk has now taken us,” Branyan said, adding that over 45 different properties had been explored for parking.
“When we entered the agreement with DATTCO we were in discussion with the CT Dept of Transportation for parking on River Road in Cos Cob (under I95). We thought this was a perfect spot. When you take a look at it, it’s flat accessible. It’s underutilized.”
“We’re planning the long game here, because in the past when you do not have control of the property, you don’t get the economic benefits and it doesn’t create the best bidding environment,” he said. “If we can get a GPS controlled location, we’ll actually have many more vendors coming in that can bid because they can park in our location versus a spot that they own.”
Branyan presented a slide deck about the possibility of parking the buses under I95 in Cos Cob which he described as flat, accessible and under-utilized.
“It’s very long, when you walk or drive back there – we thought at the time it’s an ideal, underutilized covered location for bus parking,” he said.
“We got the response back from the DOT in June that they officially denied our request based on the flammability guidance from the Federal Highway Administration,” Branyan said. “That was not the answer we were looking for, nor anticipating.”
However, he said the FHA guidance does not expressly prohibit parking under highways and shared photos of vehicles across the state parked under I95, for municipal, private and state uses.
“One of my favorite ones – although I understand it may be changing – in New London, their transfer station and their compressed natural gas facility is under I-95.”
Branyan said First Selectman Camillo had reached out to the governor around last Thanksgiving, and the DOT reconsidered, but the answer was still no.
“If we can get some reconsideration or clear objective criteria for the approval – the examples speak for themselves. The denial does not make sense to us,” he said.
Also, Branyan said the cost of leasing from the state would be dramatically less than leasing a private parking lot.
“We believe we are the only known entity not permitted to park,” he said. “We believe we’re an outlier to this issue.”
Branyan and Dr. Mercanti-Anthony criticized local reporting on the bus parking issue for mentions of the April 2025 closure of I95 in Norwalk after a car carrier fire and the I95 bridge collapse in Cos Cob in 1983, which many residents remember vividly as it detoured traffic onto the Post Road before a temporary, emergency span was constructed for cars and light trucks in late July 1983. The bridge was not fully restored for all traffic, including trucks, until September 1983.
See also:
April 16, 2026
January 2026
Sept 25, 2025
BOE Member on Anger at 64 Buses Parked at WMS: “We’re in this situation because of the budget cuts”
Sept 26, 2026
Sept 1, 2025