Blind Mother Continues Legal Fight With Middletown To Get Busing For Her Kids To New Monmouth Elementary

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — Update on this story: The Middletown school district gave them a bus. Middletown Schools Will Provide A Bus For Legally Blind Mother's Children

A married couple from Middletown spoke at last Tuesday's Board of Education meeting, where they continued to ask the school district to provide a school bus for their children.

Rob and Carolyn Bradfield, of Stratton Place in Middletown, have three children who attend New Monmouth Elementary. Their ages are 9, 7 and 6.

Carolyn Bradfield has Usher syndrome, a genetic condition that causes Deafblindness. She suffers from moderate to severe hearing loss and has worn hearing aids since she was two years old.

In 2020, when she was 33 years old, doctors told Bradfield that her vision had deteriorated to the extent that she was legally blind. Doctors told her she should no longer drive, and she does not currently have a driver's license. Her peripheral vision has narrowed to only 12 degrees, whereas it should be 180 degrees. Bradfield previously compared it to looking through a paper towel roll, but she said it's deteriorated even more so as of today, and is more like looking through a straw.

The family lives about 1.5 miles by car from New Monmouth Elementary, and a 1.9-mile walk, so they do not qualify to receive busing from the district. Across the state of New Jersey, if you live less than 2 miles from your child's elementary school or 2.5 miles from your child's middle or high school, the school district is not required to provide a bus.

The route they would take to walk to school is down Wilson Avenue, onto Cherry Tree Farm Road and then onto New Monmouth Road. There are sidewalks the entire way, and there is a crossing guard at the corner of New Monmouth and Cherry Tree Farm Road.

However, Bradfield said the sidewalks are crumbling in parts and people put their garbage and recycling cans on the sidewalk, and she would have to go around them and into the street. It's particularly dangerous for her to attempt this with her severely limited vision, and with three small children, she said.

The speed limit is 40 MPH on Cherry Tree Farm Road and 35 MPH on New Monmouth and Wilson Ave., but cars often go much faster than that.

"One of those is a county road and you have trucks flying past you, and it's difficult for me to navigate a wagon and little kids," she told Patch this week. "Also, not only has my visibility dimmed, but I wear hearing aids and if we're walking on a busy road I can't hear what my kids are saying."

What the couple is requesting is that the school bus that goes down Wilson Avenue pick up their children. The husband-wife said they would be happy to walk the three children to the corner of Garrett and Wilson aves., and wait for the bus there.

In 2023, the Bradfields sued the Middletown school district over this matter. The school district usually does not publicly comment on active lawsuits, however, this week superintendent Jessica Alfone took the unusual move to respond:

“Thank you for an opportunity to comment," said Alfone Wednesday. "The bus routes for the 2025-2026 school year have yet to be finalized. If it turns out that there will be a bus running through the Bradfield's neighborhood to their children’s school and we can accommodate them, then we will do so.”

The Middletown school district initially tried to have the Bradfield's lawsuit dismissed, but in 2024, federal judge Peter Sheridan ruled the suit could proceed. He said it needs to be determined if the family is entitled to special privileges under the Americans with Disabilities Act, as he described Carolyn Bradfield as "a severely disabled woman with extremely limited sight and hearing."

"The Board must ... treat a disabled person fairly ... and thereby accommodate the disability in a reasonable fashion," wrote Sheridan in his 2024 opinion. "The focus is on the ADA (the Americans with Disabilities Act) ... and Carolyn's disability and whether an accommodation to treat the disabled individual fairly is (of) paramount concern."

In his opinion on the case, Judge Sheridan continued:

"Walking to school is challenging because (Carolyn) cares for the younger children and her impaired vision makes it difficult to see objects in her periphery, such as low-hanging branches, moving vehicles and any other objects unless she looks directly at them. In addition, Carolyn Bradfield's hearing impairment makes it difficult for her to hear ambient noises, including sounds from her children, other people, the weather, moving vehicles, unless she is looking in the direction of the sound."

The family has had to rely on friends and neighbors to drive their three kids. And their children have missed school: During the 2021/'22 school year, their two oldest children missed nearly a month of school mostly due to their mother being physically unable to walk them there.

The issue of school busing in Middletown

Busing for school students has always been a thorny issue in Middletown.

The Middletown school district provides "accommodation" or "courtesy busing" in certain cases, such as when children and teenagers have to walk along hazardous roads. Also, after the Middletown school district closed Port Monmouth Elementary in 2020, the district provided buses for those PoMo students who were shuffled to nearby elementaries.

However, some Lincroft families have been asking for a bus to take their kids to South for years — and have been denied. In 2021, a group of parents said it wasn't fair teenagers had to walk along a dangerous stretch of Middletown-Lincroft Road to get to South.

"What we hear all the time is if we get the busing, then it will open up a floodgate of other parents who want busing in Middletown. Well, the difference here is Carolyn's disability," Rob Bradfield said on Wednesday. "Our argument is they are legally required to provide transportation because of the Americans with Disabilities Act."

Five years ago, former Middletown superintendent Bill George heard the Bradfield's situation and agreed to provide a bus to take their oldest daughter, then 3, to a preschool program at New Monmouth. At the time, he stressed the district was only doing this as a courtesy, and that it was not legally obligated to provide the bus, said Carolyn.

That was in March 2020. One day after the bus picked her up, all New Jersey schools closed due to the pandemic.

Once the Bradfields started sending their kids to school again, their daughter was again provided the bus through June 2021, even though no PreK, non-IEP students in Middletown receive a bus. Carolyn said superintendent Dr. George did this, again, as a courtesy and because of her disability.

But then in the 2021-'22 school year, new superintendent Mary Ellen Walker canceled the Bradfield's bus and gave them a myriad of reasons, including that there was no route close to their pick-up location and there was a shortage of bus drivers. That same year, the cash-strapped Middletown school district — currently dealing with an approximately $10 million budget hole — eliminated several bus routes entirely to save money.

Judge Sheridan, now retired, and other judges who heard the Bradfield's case have asked the couple and the district to settle outside of court. So far, Middletown refused. The lawsuit has still not been resolved as of today.

"It's just been dragged along — all of 2024 was a legal battle where we compiled 500 pages of my private medical records and depositions," said Bradfield. "If this continues, now the business administrator and Middletown's transportation coordinator will have to be deposed."

Prior on the topic of busing in Middletown:

Middletown Will Likely Collapse Some School Bus Routes (2022)

Middletown Schools Talking To Twp. On HS South Busing Request (2021)