School Bus Transportation News at STN Media

Can the District of Columbia Avoid Receivership
for Transporting Students with Disabilities?

By Dr. Linda Bluth *

On the surface the announcement seemed a reasonable proposition. Officials with the Washington (D.C.) School District disclosed to the Washington Post details of a plan to pay parents of special needs children a stipend of between $3,000 to 7,500 per child, depending on where a child lives and goes to school, to transport their child to school. Their plan included sending a letter to parents notifying them of the proposed stipend.

The practice of reimbursement is not uncommon nationwide when used on an individual student basis. The proposed stipend would represent a significant boost from the district's current policy of paying 31 cents a mile if parents drive their special needs child to school in lieu of yellow bus service. Indeed, the Individuals with Disabilities Act allows a school district to ask parents if they are willing to transport their child in exchange for reimbursement. However, case law is clear that parents whose children are eligible for the related service transportation, cannot be required to do so.

Case law, huh? Well, whether it was case law or not, advocacy attornies promptly jumped on the proposal and challenged its legality, a development dutifully reported in the next edition of the Washington Post. The Post also reported district officials promptly decided to delay notifying special ed parents of the plan.

This policy zigzag in the district's transportation saga illustrates why school district officials are having such difficulty with providing transportation to children with disabilities.

Over the past few years the District of Columbia (DC) has failed miserably in its efforts to provide transportation to children with disabilities. Admittedly, with 150 D.C. school sites and 160 private school sites, comprising hundreds of routes, the district's transportation task is mind boggling. Indeed, one school consultant is quoted in the Washington Post saying special needs transportation is "impossible for us to do."

Three years ago, I began following a case referred to as Petties v. the District of Columbia which emerged from the school district's transportation morass. This case, simply put, was part of a continuing class action suit in the District of Columbia involving the provision of special education including the related service transportation. Among the major transportation issues: (1) inadequate numbers of buses resulting in excessive ride time, (2) buses out of service, (3) insufficient numbers of drivers and (4) failure to transport at all or transportation to the wrong location. D.C. schools transport about 3,500 special needs students at about $40 million per year!

What captured my attention was a Federal District Court being involved in the approval of a special education transportation plan along with a Special Master to implement the plan. At stake were court orders issued to provide for fines against the District of Columbia (DC) and its school district for the failure to comply with previous court orders.

The court approved an agreement reached between the plaintiff class and the school district which provided for the partial abatement of fines (2 million dollars) imposed on the district if the district complied with the acquisition of new buses within specified timelines. It was stipulated in the agreement that fines would be imposed if the district failed to acquire the new buses in a timely manner. Almost three years later, the District of Columbia officials are facing a possible court takeover (Receivership) of transportation, along with the recommendation to hire a special coordinator for the school system to fix transportation, a service that has failed under the provision of services by the school district as well as a national contractor and the oversight of a Court Master.

Clearly, the system was doomed for failure from the beginning because the systemic problems that caused the on-going issues were never put on the table as a first priority. For example, it is no secret that DC sends excessive numbers of students with disabilities out of their home communities to private nonpublic special education programs in the District, Maryland and Virginia. However, there is little evidence to demonstrate that special education and transportation have worked together to study the impact of a student's special education placement for services, on the ability to provide reasonable transportation services on a daily basis in a complex urban setting.

The school district clearly failed to take a first step to resolve a long-standing problem: the issue of required door to door service and continued travel outside home communities.

The advocates have done exactly what advocates are supposed to do, advocate for their clients. The impact requiring door to door service along with the impact of pick up and drop off at multiple locations is not an advocate concern. That is left to the district to manage. The primary concern of the advocates has been to get a child to and from the approved special education placement efficiently and safely, and to meet the agreements set forth in previous transportation plans.

To add to the woes of the district are long standing problems with respect to the relationship between the DC government and previous superintendents. The newest superintendent to joint the district is Paul Vance, a retired superintendent from Montgomery County, Maryland. Vance has publicly acknowledged the importance of fixing the bus problem. It was reported in the Washington Post (July 27, 2000) that the District spends $40 million to bus special education students, who number approximately 4000. By contrast, Vance stated that Montgomery County, which borders the District, spends about $50 million to transport 92,000 children, including 11,000 special education students. Unquestionably, the district cost is excessive.

In reality, the challenge of transporting students with disabilities is not an easy undertaking. The task, which requires coping with 13 different disabilities and a host of individual needs, all while driving a school bus, is challenging for the best drivers and assistants.

In July 1999, a federal district court levied $700,000 in fines and legal fees against the District of Columbia and its public school system. The Washington Post reported problems, such as the failure to make timely pick-up and drop-offs, leaving students at the wrong address, failure to make timely delivery of students to and from schools and, most recently, issues encompassing drug testing. Press coverage has been less than glowing.

When Laidlaw Transit entered the District it faced formidable hurdles in transporting nearly 3,000 special education students. Eventually the problems proved to be overwhelming. With its contract up for renewal on June 16, 2000 the nation's largest school bus contractor announced that they would not sign a new contract for the upcoming year. Fearing the loss of their jobs, bus drivers staged a strike on May 19, 2000 that resulted in 1,000 special education students not being transported to class.

This past May, then-Superintendent Arlene Ackerman commented in Education Week that the system's complex governing system, with its layers of oversight, was a major factor in her decision to leave the job. Clearly, Laidlaw was a victim of this unyielding bureaucracy. Experienced observers believe that both the District and Laidlaw did not fully understand the demands of service delivery to a school district under a federal court order. Every day, Laidlaw's local fleet was under close scrutiny and accountable to multiple parties. It is questionable if they had a realistic chance to meet the demands they took on. The Special Master, the Plaintiffs, the Court and the school system each had a set of expectations.

The question I asked myself repeatedly during Laidlaw's tenure was whether the local transportation managers had the insight and experience to meet the stringent demands of transporting students with disabilities, not only under less than idle circumstances but while operating under a microscope.

At minimum, these difficult circumstances require a team of experts who can park their egos, collaborate and demonstrate that special education, district and contractor transportation services and in house administrators, can bring about favorable changes and comply with agreements made under a court order. In summary, anyone with decades of experience working under these conditions would advise that the presence and knowledge of the courts are never to be underestimated. Further, that finding a "team of experts" to handle these matters is no simple task. Hopefully, a few lessons have been learned in the DC school system that will ensure students receiving special education transportation service will travel to and from their education programs safely.

Oh, and what about the proposed stipend? Perhaps school district officials should have talked to the Internal Revenue Service before announcing their plan. For if the IRS rules the proposed stipend is income, a concern some of the advocate attorneys have already broached, what seems such a reasonable idea may spiral into the same disarray as the district's bus system.

* The author currently serves as Chief, Community and Interagency Services Branch with the Maryland State Department of Education, Division of Special Education/Early Intervention Services. Previously, she was Assistant Superintendent/Compliance with the Baltimore City Public Schools, where she was responsible for monitoring and compliance issues under a federal consent decree order. She can be reached at Lbluth@aol.com.