How much time does your child spend on the school bus?
November 7, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Aas I drove to work today, a little yellow bus from a town we used to live in drove up alongside me. It was headed, I have reason to suspect, to an autism center and I had a fast glimpse of a brown-haired adolescent staring straight ahead.
His bus ride must be at least an hour and fifteen minutes each way. Not accounting for highway construction and inevitable traffic delays.
As I drove on to work in Jersey City, I kept thinking that if we had not moved (more than once, as it has turned out), it would have been Charlie on that bus……….clocking in nearly three hours of riding the bus every single day.
We had to get it written into our son’s IEP that he couldn’t take a bus more than 40 minutes each way–just got a medical note from the pediatrician saying it wouldn’t be healthy for him for all kinds of specific reasons–because the bus company kept proposing these bizarre schedules that would have him sitting in a carseat, in a hot bus, for more than an hour at a time. My impression was that the location of his program wasn’t great, but the real problem was with the folks who scheduled transportation, and held convenience as a higher priority than basic common sense about diverse kids and their diverse abilities to tolerate long trips.
I also have too many questions about how the “bus matrons” are selected, and what “training about special needs kids” really is, or is not.
We decided that 3 hours a day on a bus for our non-verbal children would be a form of cruel and inhuman punishment, but the school district had a different viewpoint.
Somehow I am not surprised!
Whilst we learn to be ‘Americans,’ some things are more visceral.
We’re lucky this year; Meg spends only about 20 minutes total on the bus–just 5 minutes in the morning as she’s the last pickup. The afternoon ride is longer as they have to go to another school first before dropping her off. But there’s still room for problems in that afternoon ride; I often think the bus attendants are not very well-trained and sometimes create more problems than they solve.
Perhaps the school district personnel who make these decisions about the buses ought to ride the bus routes in the buses someday.
It’s tricky trying to decide whether to pollute collectively by taking the bus, or privately by using your own car. http://whitterer-autism.blogspot.com
Almost every seat is taken in Charlie’s bus—-he used to ride a bus (= a minivan) with an aide and a bus driver 45 minutes to and back, just for him.
I have a hope of him “someday” riding his bike to school—that would mean we’d have to ride too….
Amigo had a long ride in middle school — 45 minutes or more each way — but he and the bus driver bonded and became great buddies, so he didn’t mind. But he is very verbal, so he can express his needs if necessary. for some, that’s not a possibility.
Our 14 y/o son MJ travels over 130 miles each day to/from school. Do we wish there was an educational program to meet his needs closer to our small, rural town? Of course. Currently, he’s on the bus on average 1 1/2 hrs. each way. Except for days like today when a blown out tire on the school bus (SUV) added another two hours to the trip (got home at 6pm). How do he and the other autistic students handle it? The trip to school has definitely improved his patience, verbal and social skills. They laugh, draw cartoons, have a good time together, sleep, read, watch a movie on a DVD player or play Game Boy. Long commutes are certainly not for every student. Our kids love their school, and classmates, and seem to be handling it well. When asked about his long bus ride MJ says “Uh, it’s like Dunkin Donuts, it’s worth the trip.
I sighted a yellow school bus next to me as I sat in unmoving traffic last night due to all the rain and was thankful that Charlie does not have a long ride to and from school. That’s great that MJ does so well on such a long trip—-is there one aide on the bus? How many students?
His school must be “worth the trip.” indeed!
No bus for us yet — just drop-offs at 2 elementary schools, the last stop about 25-30 minutes from the time we leave the house (it takes longer the later we leave). And I know what music everyone likes, and we have a CD player in the vehicle usually used to transport children.
The kids are on the bus to long -say a hour and half, there is no air condition on the bus and the kids are dripping with sweat. This is not a heathly way to go to school. The buses are like a sweatshop.”