On Tuesday afternoon, Greenwich Schools superintendent Dr. Toni Jones emailed Western Middle School families with more good news.
The previous day she announced the appointment of a new principal at the middle school, Matthew Laskowski, who will take over from Suzanne Coyne on July 1.
Jones’s email said that beginning Saturday, August 1, all of the school buses currently parked at Western Middle School will be mobilized to a commercial parking lot in Stamford.
The lot is located at 328 and 303/305 Selleck Street.
Buses at the intersection of Hillside and East Putnam Avenue on the first day of school. Aug 31, 2017 Photo: Leslie Yager
Tuesday’s news came more than a year after the district started searching for a location to park the fleet of school buses – about 80, including the small “Type 2” school buses.
The backstory was that in April 2025, the Greenwich Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET) voted along party lines to cut over $4 million from the school board’s proposed operating budget, forcing the BOE to find efficiencies while trying to eliminate as few teaching jobs as possible. The Greenwich school board voted in May 2025 to move the Greenwich High School start time from 8:30am to 7:45am for the 2025-2026 school year, saving roughly $1.9 million in transportation (school buses) costs. That decision came with a gamble that the district could secure a bus parking location for the new vendor, DATTCO. Unfortunately, the district was unable to find a single location to park all 80 buses.
Instead buses were parked in multiple locations across town, including the grass field at Western Middle School, which was damaged as a result. There were also arrangements to park some buses at St Paul’s Church on King Street, some at Julian Curtiss School and some at the train station in Old Greenwich.
“Although we had hoped this would have happened many months ago, we know that the reasons behind what we did was for the long-term betterment of the transportation department and district budget,” Jones wrote. “The cooperation and patience from the entire Western Middle School community is very much appreciated.”
Jones noted that while there will still be buses parked on the Western blacktop through July, they are not activated for summer transportation.
The superintendent gave a special thank you to the town’s Parks & Recreation Dept who are working to restore the grassy area for the community.
Jones added that next year, DATTCO will provide new buses for Greenwich Schools, a more competitive pricing structure, and will continue the implementation of My Ride K-12 app, the real-time tracking software platform that gives parents and students real time access to bus route numbers, scheduled stop times, and stop locations.
“We remain grateful that DATTCO was willing to sign a two-year contract at the last minute last year when other providers would not,” Jones continued. “As a result, they mobilized mostly older buses from across their Connecticut fleet to get GPS up and running this year. We are looking forward to a much improved start to the school year.”
Jones again thanked everyone in the Western neighborhood, families, students, and staff for their patience during the 2025-2026 school year.
See also:
Western Middle School 7th Grader to BOE: Beeping Buses are a Distraction to Learning
April 19, 2026
April 16, 2026
BOE Member on Anger at 64 Buses Parked at WMS: “We’re in this situation because of the budget cuts”
Sept 26, 2025
Sept 25, 2025
Sept 1, 2025