We have been experiencing ongoing issues with school district Special Education transportation since the beginning of the school year, and have now come to believe that these issues will not be adequately addressed unless we escalate them to the School Board, Superintendent and/or higher authorities.
Children with autism and other disabilities are placed in the care of transportation each morning, with the trust that they will be treated with kindness and dignity and be delivered safely to school, and then back home in the afternoon. These children cannot advocate for themselves and many of them lack the ability to effectively communicate any mistreatment they may receive. As parents, we count on the district to take the appropriate actions necessary to safeguard our children - screening and training of bus drivers and monitors, video cameras on buses, etc. We expect to be able to communicate with our child's transportation staff, as needed, and certainly in the case of an emergency or other out of the ordinary situation. These safeguards have broken down, and this problem must be remedied for the safety and well-being of the children in the district - those with special needs AND those with "typical" needs.
Prior the the beginning of the school year, as always, transportation is charged with coordinating bus routes and then communicating this information to the parents. The procedure is for transportation to phone parents of the special needs children with the bus route number, animal or other designation, driver and monitor's names and the pickup and drop off times. We need this info prior to the start of school so that we can have our special needs children prepared at the correct time in the morning, and also so we know our child is getting on the correct bus to be taken to their schools and handed off to the appropriate staff. This year, when I had not received this information as of the Friday before school started, I phoned the transportation office (again) to find out the plan. After numerous prolonged "holds" I was given information, which I questioned as to accuracy because it was exactly the same as the previous school year. After another prolonged "hold" to check, I was reassured that this information was correct, and I was all set. I prepped my child with this bus number, animal designation and staff names and he was ready to start a new school year. On the first day of school, to my surprise and discomfort, the bus showed up over 10 minutes late, different bus number, animal designation and staff than I had been given. I almost kept my child home, but because the ladies had the correct information (child's name, school etc.), I went ahead and put him on the bus, with some measure of discomfort. After trying to call the transportation office for approx. 3 hours and only getting busy signals, I fired off an email complaint/request for info clarification to the Director of Transportation. When I hadn't received any response by the next day, I sent a follow up email, to which Director of Special Education responded that she fwded it to the Director of Transportation. I still received no response from transportation until I sent a request for assistance to the superintendent and his executive assistant. I do not think it is appropriate or reasonable that I have to go all the way to the superintendent's office before I can receive a response from transportation about a legitimate complaint.
On September 7th, the bus arrived for drop off over 10 minutes early, meaning I was barely back from picking my other child up from her elementary school. I attempted to ask the bus staff about the timing and if I needed to be making alternate arrangements, since I had almost missed them, but instead of communicating with me, they shut the bus door in my face and drove off without a word. This prompted a call to transportation, because (1) I wanted clarification on timing that was still totally inconsistent both morning and afternoon, and (2) because I thought it inappropriate that the bus staff should ignore me as a parent and drive off like that. I was reassured by the Director of Transportation that this situation would be remedied. Since my child's teacher is also my district representative, I also gave her a heads up on the situation. The following morning, the bus staff was still non-communicative with me, but I let it go to give them a chance to improve. My child's teacher managed to ask them about the timing inconsistency and they told her that they had already spoken with me about this - a bold-faced lie. To make matters worse, instead of trying to open a real dialogue with me that afternoon at drop off, they chastised me, to the point of shouting about not talking to them about the issue. I politely reminded them that they had not given me the opportunity, as they had shut the door in my face as I was speaking to them, thus leaving me no other choice than to bring the matter up to management. It was at this point that my husband and I decided that a change should really be made in our child's transportation team. The lack of communication, inconsistency of timing and the deceit were all contributing factors. If the staff was lying about this, what else might they lie about? Our child's disability prevents him from fully reporting back to us his experiences on the bus, thus leaving us in a situation where we could not in good conscience just ignore these issues. We formally made this request to the Director of Transportation on 9/9/10 via both email and phone message. After receiving no response after repeated follow up, the Superintendent's Executive Assistant put us in contact with the Deputy Superintendent who oversees Transportation . I was able to connect with him on 9/14, we spoke and he investigated the issue. Unfortunately, my request was denied.
The Deputy Superintendent assured me that the staff was being counseled about improving communication and consistency and we had no choice but to try to work with what we had. Our child's teacher even made a communication log in hopes helping the staff better communicate with us. We observed no change.
On Monday, 11/8, things went horribly awry. My child vomited at some point on the bus ride home. When the bus arrived, the monitor escorted me onto the bus and to my dismay, I found my child still buckled in, covered in (already drying) vomit, softly crying. They had not so much as offered him a paper towel to wipe his chin. When he saw me, he told me it was "gross" and "disgusting" and that he needed help. I asked the staff if this had *JUST* happened, and they replied NO. As much as I wanted to lay into them about my disgust with the situation, my priority had to be helping my child who was miserable and asking for help. Once I got him inside, cleaned up and comfortable, I sent an email complaint to the Director of Transportation, the Deputy Superitendent and my child's teacher, following with a phone call/message for the Director of Transportation. After some follow up, I was told that they launched an investigation. We learned that the video on the bus hadn't been working for days (I don't know how long), and the bus staff changed their story when questioned and stated that my child had vomited as the bus was pulling up to my house. The fact that the vomit was already drying on my child's chin tells me that this was another lie.
The one bright spot in all of this was that the Director of Transportation finally agreed to switch Corey away from that transportation team (driver & monitor). We committed to providing transportation for our child until the new transportation was in place, as we could not, in good conscience, put our child back on a bus with that team. We now have our child on a new bus/route and I can state that they are WONDERFUL. They immediately set out to put my child at ease, and actively engaged him - we are so happy and relieved. This the kind of team that needs to be in place on these buses.
This school year, our child went from loving riding the bus to hating it. Already, he is feeling more positive about the bus again - further reinforcing to me that the former team is NOT a good one. Since the incident, my child has experienced regression in the area of self-care/toileting, something we always battle against in the world of Autism. Clearly, this incident affect him negatively, and I don't know how long it will take to completely leave it behind.
Since all of this happened, I have been speaking to other autism parents in the district and have learned of at least 2 other incidents in the district SpEd transportation recently.
1) On the same bus, same day as my child's incident, another child ended up with significant bruising around her waist from her seatbelt after falling asleep on the ride home.
2) A non-verbal 11 year old autistic child vomited on the bus and was given little or no assistance, thus mom went on board the bus to get him cleaned up and inside his home upon arrival at his residence.
After all of this, I sent an email requesting that transportation do an inspection on all video equipment on these buses - it is there for a reason, to protect the children and also the drivers - if it is not functional, everyone is left unprotected. I have received no response or acknowledgement of this request. I also feel strongly that the team in question should NOT be transporting special needs children, as they are clearly not qualified to do so. My child has friends/classmates still in the care of this driver and monitor team, and I can't help but worry about those children and their well-being and safety.
These are the questions that I think need to be answered by the district:
- Are these drivers and monitors being adequately trained and screened for work with Special Needs children?
- Will the district now be doing a thorough inspection of video surveillance equipment on all buses in the district?
- Why would the district put monitors and drivers together that may not speak English well enough to communicate with the parents of the children in their care? Putting children with communications issues (autism) on buses with staff that cannot or will not clearly communicate with parents and teachers is a recipe for trouble.
Now, will the administration adequately address these questions? Stay tuned...
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