WASHINGTON D.C., DC — They are just trying to get their children to school on time. District caregivers testified before the DC Council that buses meant to pick up students with special needs are unreliable and children and families are paying for it.
They were among the hundreds of parents, principals, and advocates who testified at Wednesday’s Council of the Whole Performance Oversight Hearing.
Camille Tate said her son has not had a school bus pick him up all school year.
“When you have an autistic kid and they’re not getting to school properly on time, it throws their whole schedule off,” said Tate.
“The kids who can communicate tell us there are more students on their bus,” added another mom Amy Dunn, “just two days ago there was an incident on my son’s bus that required police and an ambulance, and it may have been due to too many special needs students on a bus together.”
“Communication has to be better for our children because they are suffering,” said Renice Robertson, “If the bus is late or doesn’t come at all, then I’m late for work and it’s not fair!”
“At this point my job is in jeopardy,” testified mom Dina Tomic, “I am a single parent with no support, and I rely on consistent childcare and transportation.”
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education, or OSEE, provides buses for children with special needs. WUSA9 covered the delays in January, when 87 routes were off schedule in just one day. At the time, OSSE blamed staffing shortages and call outs. As for the parents who testified Wednesday, they said the buses have been a problem for 8 to 10 years.
“I filed complaints, I’ve called, and I always get we apologize we’re short staffed drivers are doing double routes,” said Tate.
“We have client who was paying 80 dollars a day in ride share costs to get their child to and from school on a promise of one day reimbursement,” testified Danielle Robinette with the Children’s Law Center.
“This is unacceptable, and we deserve better,” said Robertson.
OSEE told WUSA9 they’re working to address the problems and so far, are in the process of hiring 125 new drivers, offering employee attendance incentives, launching a tracking website and raising the parent reimbursement rate.
Superintendent Dr. Christina Grant issued the following statement:
We know that some families have not been receiving the timely, reliable service they expect and deserve, and we are working diligently to meet the needs of our students.
A nationwide bus driver and attendant shortage coupled with an average of 100 staff callouts per day have required the Office of the State Superintendent of Education Division of Student Transportation (OSSE DOT) to make complex decisions to serve as many students as possible. These decisions include combining routes, sending drivers and attendants out to complete multiple routes consecutively, and as a last resort, dropping and not servicing some routes. Put simply, when there are not enough drivers and attendants to cover bus routes on a given day, we have to quickly adjust a complex system of more than 500 buses serving more than 3,800 students.
While we have made progress from improving our on-time performance from below 80 percent to above 90 percent for the last two weeks, we understand there are still ongoing challenges, including late pick-ups, longer ride times, and the need for families to make separate travel arrangements. We also know that these challenges are impacting families and students in ways beyond getting to and from school each day, and we are doing everything in our power to address these issues.
As a result of the hiring fair, we held on Feb. 16-17 for prospective bus drivers, bus attendants and other key positions, we have made more than 125 contingent offers of employment and we continue to conduct interviews of qualified candidates.
We have contracted with new private student transportation vendors. Every week, OSSE-DOT is contracting with additional qualified vendors to expand our ability to cover routes.
We've launched a new web page to provide daily morning and afternoon updates on late and down bus routes. This page allows parents to view the status of bus services as early as 7 a.m., and if necessary, to make travel arrangements if a bus is expected to be delayed or down that day.
After receiving feedback from families, we have raised the parent reimbursement rate from $0.655 per mile to $1.48 per mile, a 125 percent increase. This rate increase is in effect for the remainder of the 2022-23 school year and applies retroactively to all trips since Aug. 29, 2022. Previously submitted reimbursement requests will receive the new, higher rate and provide payment to families with no action required by families.
Launched a $2,500 employee attendance incentive to address staff callouts. This is in addition to a $2,500 incentive that was implemented for the first half of the school year.
We know that we cannot meet family expectations overnight, and we are working urgently to provide our students and families with the safe, reliable service they deserve. We will continue to update our families and build and retain our team of dedicated professionals.
We appreciate the patience our families have afforded us so far, and we will continue making every effort to improve as quickly as possible.
Education leaders, including members of OSSE, are set to testify Friday.