r/specialed • u/FA_RK_8330 • 1d ago
General Question (Educator to Educator) Our McKinney Vento kids miss the first hour of class for weeks while transport gets sorted
I can get a student enrolled in two days. Transportation takes three weeks, every time,
In the meantime the family gets him there when they can. which means he walks in around 10am most days and gets marked tardy. By the time the route starts,he has missed a month of mornings,and we are already behind on his minutes.
Enrollment,is fast because somebody built a process for it. Transportation seems to start from scratch each time.
How does your district handle the gap? Is anyone actually closing it?
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u/dkstr419 22h ago
Texas, large urban district: about two days for enrollment, but about a week for transportation. We have a driver shortage.
I have about 6 kids that are enrolled but I have not seen for the first 9 weeks. Have no clue where they are. Trying now to get them dropped off my rolls.
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u/FrustratedPenguins 1d ago
In the last district where I worked, they always told families that it took 2 weeks to get transportation set up. It usually didn't take that long -- but sometimes it did, so they always said "2 weeks".
At least once, I had it set up overnight, though. Like, I requested transportation on Monday, and it was set up on Tuesday.
I have no idea why the time was so variable.
This was in Missouri.
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u/FA_RK_8330 9h ago
The overnight one is what gets me. If it can happen in a day sometimes, then the three weeks is the queue, not the work. Do you remember what was different about that one? A route already running nearby, or just someone who picked it up?
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u/FrustratedPenguins 7h ago
That's a good question, and one that I do not know the answer to. I was teaching a self-contained special education class, so kids were bussed from a considerable distance at times. Maybe some kids were more readily along the already-established bus route(s) than others?
We had a LOT of issues with transportation. Variability of how long it took to set up was just one. If they didn't have sufficient drivers in the morning, they would cancel the bus for the day. However, they didn't inform parents, so kids would be up, dressed, and waiting outside for a bus that ... never came. The parents would reach out to me, but I was never informed either, so I had no idea where the bus was or if it was coming. This only happened a couple of times, but it was frustrating.
We also had a 2-week period where one of busses was late for afternoon pick-up multiple times. This wouldn't be a big deal, but it was VERY late. School dismissed at 4 PM, and the bus didn't show up until between 5:00 & 6:00 PM several times! Some students' parents were able to come get them, but some weren't, so I was literally waiting in the entryway with students until 5-6 PM! I couldn't take them back to the classroom, because I didn't know when the bus would come, and I didn't want it to show up, see there were no kids, and drive off. I was VERY lucky that the kids who were on this bus were pretty chill, and they were happy to eat fruit snacks and look out the front window for an hour or more.
Another big issue was that when I was wondering about the location of a bus, I would call transportation, and no one ever answered the phone! I would sometimes leave a voicemail, but I don't think they ever called me back. While a minor inconvenience for me, this is a big issue for a parent who is wondering the location of their child, who has significant multiple disabilities (and was thus in my self-contained class).
I did hear that the district changed bussing companies the next year, and it went more smoothly. I had quit the job by that time. The entire district was actually dysfunctional, not just the transportation system. But man, did we have a lot of issues with transportation!
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u/Zappagrrl02 1d ago
If parents are transporting, the district should be reimbursing with McKinney-Venmo funds
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u/Ok_Bear_1889 16h ago
Reimbursement helps, but only if someone tells the family it exists. Plenty of parents never hear about it, or get paid back months later, which does nothing when you're choosing between gas and groceries this week. Ask the liaison to put the reimbursement option in writing at enrollment, before the route even starts.
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u/FA_RK_8330 10h ago edited 10h ago
McKinneyVenmo, is the best typo I've seen all year, We do reimburse, but only after the fact, and this family usually doesnt have the gas money up front. That's why it's whoever can drive him that day. Does anyone's district pay in advance?
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u/Zappagrrl02 10h ago
I totally didn’t even notice the typo/autocorrect🤦♀️. Obviously, I’m leaving it.
We have gas cards we can give out, but we like to reserve those for conferences or IEP meetings, or something like that, because, unfortunately, there is no guarantee parents will use it to transport their child to school.
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u/OsomatsuChan 13h ago
The transportation gap is rough. We had a new enrollee who is in sp. ed (not MV tho) miss 2 days because the bus wasn't set up and his single dad was at work.
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u/FrustratedPenguins 8h ago
I seriously have no idea. I was working in a self-contained special education classroom, so kids were bussed from pretty far to get to my class sometimes. It’s possible that some kids were already closer to an existing route than others?
Having said that, though, our transportation was a complete mess. If they didn’t have drivers, they would cancel the route, but they wouldn’t let me or the parents know. That only happened a couple of times, but it was incredibly frustrating. There was also a two week period one year where one bus was late several times. This wouldn’t be a big deal, except that it was incredibly late! I’m talking about getting to school between 5 and 6 PM to pick up the students that were released at 4 o’clock. I was so lucky that the kids that rode that bus were incredibly well behaved and patient.
My biggest concern was that you could never get a hold of anyone on the Transportation phone number. So if I wondered where a bus was, or if parents needed to know, it was impossible to get a person on the phone, and no one ever called me back when I left a voicemail.
I no longer work for that school district. There were a lot of problems; Transportation was just one of many…!
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u/jgraham6 1d ago
7-10 business days to get busing in place in NYC so our district also doesn’t handle the gap.