The Schoolbus Issue
October 1, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Every day as I drive to and from work I see the buses: Little yellow schoolbuses like the one Charlie rides; minivans with faded lettering (”Angeline’s Transportation”; “school children inside”; “this vehicle stops at ALL train tracks”), sometimes with a rather jalopy quality and lots of dents in the fenders. We’re fortunate that Charlie is able to attend school in our town and rides a bus with his classmates, but a couple of years ago, when he was in a private school, he rode in one of those minivan buses. It was 45 minutes each way (depending on traffic). The aide and driver were kind-hearted, and quite honest about how limited their English was. More recently, a friend related the terrifying start to her son’s first day at school, with a bus that came an hour early, that then came back ten minutes after the appointed time, and that—for a good hour—was incommunicado when the driver got lost. A police car finally located the bus, and a very distraught autistic child.
Similar accounts of frustration from parents in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, are noted in today’s Lowell Sun. According to some parents, their special needs children’s buses have been late to get to school for 16 consecutive days; the school district disagrees.
A couple of parents have called upon SPEDwatch, a Pepperell-based nonprofit group working to secure the educational rights of all Massachusetts school children with disabilities. SPEDwatch is helping the Chelmsford parents file their complaints with the state Department of Education.
“Non-compliance with the special-education law is rampant in Massachusetts,” said Ellen Chambers, founder and executive director of SPEDwatch. “Unfortunately, the consequences are human. We help children and parents fight for what they have a right to.”
Said [parent Regina Jackson], “This would not be tolerated if these were (regular education) students.”
And it’s not going to be tolerated for special needs students.
Here’s the website for SPEDwatch.
OK, this is sad. I cannot even begin to imagine my daughter riding 45 minutes with someone who also doesn’t communicate (english), must less missing. Lots of bad possibilities run through my head related to this topic.
I also wonder what kind of background checks are done on these drivers.
So far Matt is doing well on bus. He will only get on if his assistant is behind him.
On another post I recall you mentioning that Charlie started with sign language. They kept trying to push this on Matt when his IEP clearly stated to utilize pecs and his device. I had it included each year to say parent does not want it to be utilized and whenever I observed someone doing it I would call the school.
How did Charlie do, did he retain any sign?
Matt did not get it and I do not know it.
It’s awful, and I don’t mean in any way to excuse this situation, but at least in our area, these kinds of issues are problematic for any child who attends a school other than the neighborhood public school, whether it is a special education setting, or a private typical education setting. The school district transportation tends to be geared almost exclusively to meeting the needs of only those children attending their local neighborhood schools; all other children, typical or special education, are after thoughts and inconveniences to the Transportation Departments.
Well, it gets a little more interesting about Charlie in that minivan. The first day it took them 2 hours to get home…… he was the best of sports throughout it all, I have to say. There was one time he was having a tough morning and I went running after the minivan because I could see him thrashing around. This year the bus driver and aide are rather circumspect and sometimes curt, but we have had some very friendly and personable drivers and aides in the past. Maybe next year.
Regarding sign language—Charlie doesn’t retain any of the signs, though he did for years. He never warmed up too much to PECS; I think he was just very used to speaking and getting out the PECS book and pointing etc. just took too long!
Maybe the parents of special ed kids could ask to have chauffeured Rolls Royce transportation included in their child’s IEP.
Last year, the school’s answer to transportation was asking my then-first grader to ride the non-air-conditioned “short bus” for almost TWO HOURS after a full school day. We live five minutes away, and our kids aren’t allowed to have their bookbags or anything with them in their seats. Six year old autistic boy, two hours in an oven with nothing to do other than stare out the window. That wasn’t happening. Thankfully, I was able to pick him up every day. This year, he’s actually at my driveway before school officially lets out (they let our Sped kids out 10 minutes early to avoid the insanity of dismissal time). No typical child in our district has such a ride as we had last year (because no one should put up with that!), and we feel like having our guy ride the bus is important, to learn how to act there, just as he learns how to act at school. That’s why it’s in his IEP (although I may have to give some thought to the Rolls next IEP season. His lovely bus driver might appreciate an upgrade.)
Transportation is a very legitimate issue for an IEP. We had situations where my son was on the bus more than an hour each way (and there is no bus aide). We negotiated with the district to shorten the bus ride–it is now half that length, and he has been having much fewer behavioral issues on the bus.
Does Charlie ride a long bus or a short bus (NOT mean disparagingly)? Scott road a short bus for years; when we moved, he got a long bus for two three years and was ecstatic. When his route changed to a short one, he threw such a fit that my grandmother demanded his bus be long again. Anybody else have that experience? I never realized what a big deal it was for him (especially as for most of my school career, we mainstream students only had SF public transportation if we rode a bus!).
forgive all my typos; i’ve been up for twelve hours now!
The bus issue is horrible here! The boys are about 4 miles from school and ride the bus. For the first 2 weeks, the bus was so late to pick them up that we left and got in our car. That was finally rectified and the boys rode the bus for the next 4 weeks. Last week, their bus route was changed because they were getting to school at least 10 minutes late each day.
So now they are picked up 30 minutes earlier, 50 minutes before school, starts. For a 4 mile ride. But they have their books to read so they don’t mind.