Despite a last-minute push by Lansford Borough Council and residents, Panther Valley will not roll back changes to its bus stops for the start of the 2018-19 school year.

Borough council voted earlier this month to move some students back to the former Panther Valley Middle School on Bertsch Street, but school officials said it’s too close to the beginning of the year to make the change. School starts for students on Aug. 27.

“I’m not sure what will happen, but we already sent letters to parents with the stops. We will see,” said Ken Marx, Panther Valley School District’s business manager.

The new bus stop plan was put in place to break up a busy bus stop outside the former middle school, and prevent young students from crossing Route 209.

But a pair of residents attended two meetings asking to move a stop near their homes because of concerns about students congregating on their lawn and also the fact that they believe there is drug dealing occurring near the stop.

Theresa Papay and Gail Yasson requested that council scrap plans to move students to the intersection of Abbott and Coal streets.

“I respectfully ask for the bus stop locations to be reconsidered again, thank you,” Papay said at council’s August meeting.

Council approved their own list of bus stops that returned some students to the school while keeping other stops in place. Soto explained why the changes were made in the first place.

“The district had some concerns with pickup at the middle school, which resulted in us working on ways to break down that conglomerate of kids that go to school from different sections of town, but also conscious of kids not having to cross the main highway,” Soto said.

Soto said via email he hopes to meet with the district after the start of the year and possibly move some bus stops.

The bus stops in Lansford Borough are as follows:

• Cortright Street

• Ridge and Spring Garden streets

• Abbott and Walnut streets

• West Ridge Street (behind Friendly Food Mart)

• 24 W. Bertsch St.

• Jones and Bertsch streets

• Jones and Ridge streets

• Former Hotel Aquila

• Lansford Townhomes

• Knepper Lane

• Oak Street

• Edgemont