Parents Sue OSSE for Adequate Transportation

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A current federal-class action lawsuit alleges that the District’s state education agency denied students with disabilities equal access to their education by failing to provide them with safe and reliable transportation to and from school. 

For more than a year, parents have taken to social media and participated in D.C. Council and State Board of Education hearings in response to bus delays and route cancellations that caused their children with disabilities to miss hours of instructional time and accommodations outlined in their Individual Education Program (IEP). 

Now, five District parents and The Arc of the United States, which promotes the rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, are filing a lawsuit to promote permanent positive change. Lawyers representing the parents and The Arc said they want to ensure that the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) ultimately improves aspects of its transportation system, including GPS tracking. 

“Being in special education, these students require time to adjust to school,” said Kathy Zeisel, director of special legal projects at the Children’s Law Center and one of the attorneys who filed the federal class-action lawsuit. “They arrive an hour or so late, and it takes the school additional time — an hour and sometimes up to four — to get them back on track into their routine. They might not make any progress because they’re getting such an inconsistent education.”  

Over the last few months, Zeisel, along with Kaitlin Banner, deputy legal director at Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, often spoke with parents and guardians of students with disabilities who expressed their concerns about OSSE’s beleaguered transportation system. 

The five parents who eventually filed the suit did so out of an obligation to effect long-term change, Zeisel said. 

Throughout much of last year, these parents went through administrative hearings at D.C. Superior Court. Upon learning that court officers didn’t have the jurisdiction or authority to address their discrimination claims under the Individual with Disabilities Education Act. or IDEA Act, the parents set their sights on federal courts. 

As such, the federal class-action lawsuit cites IDEA Act, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the District of Columbia Human Rights Act. 

“The idea behind IDEA and ADA is to make sure students with disabilities can participate fully in life,” Banner told The Informer. “ We do that in schools through inclusion so they can be with their nondisabled peers. Sometimes, the only time during the day they get to do that is at breakfast. By arriving late, it impacts their ability to work on their socioemotional goals.” 

In 1995, the federal courts found D.C.’s public school system in violation of IDEA for failing to pay for students’ private special-education placement and transportation. This came about after District parents filed a class-action lawsuit against the District in what became known as Petties v. District of Columbia. 

These aspects of special education would end up being under the purview of the courts for the next 17 years. 

OSSE, under the Vincent C. Gray administration, received direct control of its Division of Student Transportation in 2012. However, a bus driver shortage has once again exacerbated the agency’s transportation woes. Parents say the bus delays have disrupted their child’s education and the schedules of family members who are juggling other commitments. 

According to the lawsuit, buses arrived more than an hour late to pick up students from their homes, or didn’t arrive at all. Buses also picked up students early from school or left them stranded without guaranteed transportation. The consolidation of bus routes has increased commute times, which, according to the lawsuit, caused physical and mental harm to students with disabilities who were unable to access food, medication and toilets. 

Other complaints center on the lack of properly trained medical personnel and equipment aboard the bus. Attorneys for the parents have also described what they call an antiquated and unreliable tracking system by which bus drivers write each student’s name on a ticket before scanning it into a tracking system. 

In instances when the driver doesn’t record the child’s presence, the child’s progress along the route remains unknown for several hours at a time. 

Joann McCray: ‘I Just Want the Bus to Come on Time‘

Joann McCray, a mother of a 12-year-old son with autism, counts among those named in the class-action lawsuit. For her, transportation has been an issue over the nine years that her son has taken OSSE-operated buses. 

McCray explained that recent delays are jeopardizing not only her son’s academic and socioemotional growth, but her prospects of career advancement. In April, just weeks after the bus delays worsened, she purchased a car. Before then, her son’s godfather stepped in to take him to school when he missed the bus or it never came. 

As McCray recounted, her son suffers temper tantrums and mental breakdown on the mornings he’s unable to ride the bus. She said it got to a point where, one time during the last school year, she had to run after him as he chased after a bus that left him. 

Later, during the summer, the school bus never picked up or dropped off her son until the last week of summer enrichment, McCray said. 

In what she describes as the most harrowing case against OSSE’s Division of Student Transportation, McCray mentioned two occasions before the start of Thanksgiving break where she and her son’s teacher collaborated to get her son home after the bus never picked up her son from school. 

One evening, McCray and her son’s teacher met at a nearby gas station, McCray said. The next evening, thet teacher dropped off her son at home, she added. 

“The school might not know what’s happening with the bus and everyone gives you the runaround,” McCray said. “Teachers and principals are scared to say something. I don’t want anyone to get in trouble. I just want the bus to come on time. It’s a major setback for my son. His report card is showing that he’s no longer an honor roll student in math and science.” 

Elizabeth Daggett Says Son is Losing Valuable Instructional, Social Time

Elizabeth Daggett, another parent named in the lawsuit, told The Informer that her son, a 13-year-old nonverbal student, often comes home more than two hours late agitated, dehydrated and with a soiled diaper. She expressed her concern that her son, who wears a harness on the bus, is further disadvantaged due to his inability to articulate his feelings during the prolonged commute. 

For Daggett, the stress starts much earlier in the day. She said that she spends every morning not knowing whether her son’s bus will come on time, or at all. In the event it doesn’t come, Daggett’s husband has to take her son to school, which she said decimates his work commute and the ability of their other two children to get to school on time.  

Whenever Daggett’s son gets to catch the bus, the efficiency and safety of the experience get called into question. Daggett told The Informer that a few years ago OSSE denied her the opportunity to pick up her son from the scene of an accident that further delayed his evening commute. 

She also recounted an instance in 2016 when, more than an hour after putting her son on the bus in the morning, she received a call from his school inquiring about his attendance. The hours upon hours spent on the bus, she said, has set him back academically and socially. 

“He’s losing time to be with other students, social activities, therapy and educational opportunities. He’s missing time to do his adaptive learning,” Daggett said. “He needs help feeding himself. I’m trying to have him be a successful member of society. He needs to improve but he can’t make that progress if he’s not at school.” 

OSSE Cites Progress, But Problems Persist 

OSSE declined to comment on pending litigation. 

In recent months, OSSE endeavored to improve transportation services by contracting with private transportation vendors to cover specific routes, incentivizing drivers and attendants, working to improve route efficiency, and reimbursing families for self-transportation. 

An OSSE spokesperson also touted the agency’s Parent Resource Center as additional means of support for families. 

OSSE also continues to focus on hiring more bus drivers. The spokesperson alluded to the eventual launch of a commercial driver’s license academy to sustain that professional pipeline. They said that, despite a nationwide bus driver shortage, the agency maintains an above 95% on-time route daily route coverage across 450 daily bus routes. 

Nearly 90 of those routes are covered by a private vendor this school year, the spokesperson said. 

Earlier this month, State Superintendent Dr. Christina Grant spoke before the D.C. Council’s Committee of the Whole during a performance oversight hearing. She told committee members that on-time rates have improved over the year, later answering questions about transportation, hiring of bus drivers, and GPS tracking. 

Mendelson told The Informer that he was satisfied with Grant’s testimony, given the decline in parent complaints that he received over the last few months. While GPS tracking of bus routes remains an outstanding issue, Mendelson said that OSSE’s handling of the transportation issues appear to be improving. 

He also told The Informer that he stands prepared to fund GPS tracking in OSSE’s Fiscal Year 2025 if, for whatever reason, it has been cut. 

D.C. State Board of Education (SBOE) Representative Eboni-Rose Thompson has also kept close watch of transportation issues. 

Last July, the State Board passed a resolution centered on safe and reliable school transportation for students with disabilities — all with the goal of preventing the District from entering a new court-ordered receivership. 

The resolution called for the proper vetting and staffing of bus drivers; increasing bus wait times from three minutes to five minutes; reimbursement for families who paid for alternative means of transportation; working with the Office of Chief Financial Officer for a better reimbursement plan; launching a bus tracking application; creating calendars that clearly communicate when OSSE will and will not provide bus services; and hosting listening sessions with affected families. 

Passage of the resolution followed a working session during which state board representatives discussed bus delays, workforce shortages, and timely reimbursements. Representatives also heard public witness testimony from several community members, including a student with autism who requested the increase of bus wait times.  

Thompson also attended OSSE’s bus driver hiring fair, an experience she described as a bright spot. 

At the SBOE performance oversight hearing before the D.C. Council, the Office of the Ombudsman for Public Education shared the challenges that parents had tracking bus routes. Thompson acknowledged those complaints. While she noted that some issues, like reimbursement, fell outside of OSSE’s jurisdiction, she said that OSSE must continue to increase the bus driver workforce.  

“We know there’s a national bus driver shortage and it got more noticeable coming out of the pandemic,” said Thompson, Ward 7 representative and president of the state board. “One of the things the superintendent has lifted up is being able to pay a competitive salary. For folks who get their commercial driver’s license, it’s a split shift job. That seems to be the biggest underlying issue we have to fix. That’s what OSSE is grappling with the most.” 

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Gets to Work 

The D.C. Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is in the throes of a study centered on District students’ access to special education and transportation. An ongoing briefing process includes testimony from a broad range of subject-matter experts, including people and families who have direct experience with this issue.  

Once that process is completed, then the advisory committee compiles a report. 

Since its 1957 inception, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has served as an independent, fact-finding agency dedicated to the development of civil rights policy and enforcement of federal civil rights laws. The commission advances this mission through the investigation of alleged discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or in the administration of justice. 

The D.C. Advisory Committee chose to focus on transportation due to what committee chair Wayne Heard described as District parents’ enduring fight for safe and reliable transportation for students with disabilities. He said that the current lawsuit, in a sense, speaks to what he and his fellow committee members found in law review articles about the disproportionate amount of due process complaints coming out of the District. 

“If families and guardians must pursue litigation to receive the special education and related transportation services they are entitled to, that could create barriers that disproportionately affect protected classes,” Heard said as he continued to speak about the upcoming report. 

“Children are entitled to education as a civil right. Everyone has a stake in this. We just want to do our part to aid families, caregivers and decision makers to get it done efficiently and correctly.”