Charlie Pride.That's the one memory I have of riding a bus to school in the morning.
I had a (white) middle-aged bus driver who kept a glossy picture of the (black) country music star in her bus.
She'd get misty-eyed when someone asked her who he was; she loved him that much.
That stuck with me. But almost nothing else about riding the bus ever did.
From kindergarten through 3rd grade, my school was approximately 2 miles from my house. Surely my parents didn't take me every day. But I don't recall.
From 4th to 6th, my school was just up the street, and I would not only walk to school, but come home for lunch. I don't think they let you do that anymore.
In 7th and 8th grade, the school was way across town, so I certainly rode some then. I must have. But nothing really jumps out at me.
I don't have vivid memories either way. Unlike Charlie Brown, I had no little-redhead-girl I longed to see on on the bus each morning; no bullies that I feared seeing every day. Just taking my ride from my home to my school, and back. Thinking about it now, that's probably the way it should be.
There are many parents in Staten Island who wish their children with disabilities could trade places with me, I'm sure.
Due to budget cuts, the Department of Education in New York cut 200 special education bus routes, saving the tax payers $28 million.
Unfortunately, what that brought for families is children with disabilities who wake up every morning crying at the thought of getting on the bus.
The budget crimp forced the district to cram more students with disabilities into each bus - and mix students with ambulatory difficulties in with those with behavioral problems.
This requires the buses to leave earlier and arrive later - sometimes even after school has begun.
Patty DeLeo, said the bus picks up her son at 6:40 a.m. but doesn't arrive at school until almost 9 a.m., well after the school day has already started.
Her son is no doubt already exhausted by the time he reaches school. Not to mention the possibility that a young child may have to use the restroom at some point during a 2 1/2 hour morning commute.
Some parents get around the tension by driving their children to school. But for parents like Maria Maley - who herself is recovering from cancer and a series of heart attacks - driving is not an option. Her daughter Nicole gets on the bus at 3:00 when school lets out, and doesn't get home until 6:00.
Nicole is 11.
"There's no way an 11 year-old kid should be traveling two, three hours on a bus to get home," Ms. Maley said. "This is just completely unacceptable."
By the time she washes up and has something to eat, Nicole is ready to hit the sack.
A spokesperson for the bus companies blamed the increase in the number of students each driver was responsible for. She also cited the decision to place children with physical disabilities on the same bus as those with emotional disabilities as part of the problem.
Children in wheelchairs can take up to five minutes for each stop - as opposed to 1-3 minutes for "regular" stops.
"We are providing bus service to eligible students and meeting the transportation requirements of every student with disabilities," said the spokeswoman, Margie Feinberg.
I suppose you are, Ms. Feinburg. Eventually.
She also noted that there had been fewer complaints this year. Other than, of course, the huge exposé in the Staten Island newspaper, and broadcast all over the world via the Internet.
Of course, it could be worse. They could live in Brooklyn.
In early September, a bus driver in Brooklyn had great difficulty delivering his load of two-dozen kindergartners and first graders home safely.
He arrived at school an hour late - a source of irritation for parents who live mere minutes from the school. He meandered throughout the borough, periodically stopping to read a map, and occasionally stopping to call someone until his phone eventually went dead.
At last the driver - sensing he was hopelessly lost - drove back to the school and dropped the children off at their initial departing point.
At 9:30 pm.
“She was crying, she was traumatized,” Ms. Koroma said of her daughter. Ms. Koroma said Victoria had told her that the driver had been “looking at a paper,” perhaps a map, that had “a lot of words.”
The police had a lot of words for the driver, starting with "You have the right to remain silent." Charges, however, were later dropped, because they felt he didn't mean to intentionally hurt or inflict stress on the children.
But none of those children want to get back on the bus, either.
In this country, we made a decision that school districts would be responsible for busing children to and from school.
If you are going to do it, you have to do it right.
1 comments:
A different school bussing problem:
When we moved temporarily to Winnipeg, my brother was enrolled in a local school. They refused to let him ride on the school bus because he lived just barely within the range they'd designated as how far they'd expect kids to walk to school (I'm not sure if they had different standards for different ages, if not, that's even worse). They didn't take into account the route he had to take to get to school.
We lived right on a very busy street, in an apartment, and to get to school, my brother had to walk along that busy street for about two blocks, then turn and walk about a block and a half to get to his school. He was about 7 or 8 years old at the time, and my mother didn't want him walking that far by himself, especially on a busy street. So I'd walk him to school and then walk to my own high school, which involved doubling back from his school to the busy street we lived on, then walking a further block or so. It was a real pain to do that every morning and the reverse route every afternoon.
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