[la vida loca]

I'm having a big dust-up with the school district about bus issues, one of which has to do with how much time my daughter spends on the bus. At the beginning of the school year it was an hour and 20 minutes a day. Now it is three hours and 35 minutes a day. We live 15 minutes from her school.

I've been getting no traction dealing with this through normal channels so I've called for an IEP addendum to specifically address transportation issues.

The other issue is that my daughter is in the severely "emotionally disturbed program" and had a major setback when the bus driver was verbally abusive to her. Guess who didn't get fired?

Any ideas about how to get things moving in the right direction? What is a reasonable amount of time to spend on the bus?

[momsphotoop]

we are 10 minutes from the school and my sons bus ride would be an hour and 15 minutes each way. I found that unacceptable so we just drive him every day. I can't see a kindergartner or 1st grader having to spend that amount of time on a bus.

[arbuckle17]

When I was a kid we lived about 15 min from home by car but easily 35 by bus. Not a lot of stops just slower vehicles.

You could try to getting her on one of the special needs busses, they cary less kids than most so it is a bit easier to keep things under control, but I suspect your only option to really shorten it would be to start car pooling.

[Nealie]

School districts often have rules about how long a child can be on a school bus, especially a child with a disability.

I would demand to know what the policy is. If they don't tell you, I'd threaten to file a grievance.

Then insist that they follow the policy and file a grievance if they don't.

[la vida loca]

I work during the hours she is at school, and though my employer lets me work from home they do expect me to work. I can't drive her to school.

She was on the special needs bus...that driver is the one who triggered her PTSD.

If she doesn't get home at the old time she won't get home in time to make her trauma therapy or psychiatric appointments.

[ca-bigsister]

Yes I would find out how much time a child is allowed to be on a bus. I worked with a severe needs child and lived up in the hills. I do have a personal problem with this because the parents were wealthy and I felt should have driven their daughter to school but legally they were entitled to private taxi rides because she lived so far away. So a private taxi took her to school and home every day and they were given a special reimbursement slip as the child did not handle the money. Personally I would not want a special needs child to be alone in a taxi with a stranger but that was not my decision.

So though I may have personal feelings about this, legally that was what she was entitled to in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She went to a non-public school for children with severe emotional needs.

[greenrobin]

I don't know about length of ride time rules, but I do know that there are children in our district who have transportation issues due to the severity of their needs. For these children, the district was forced to provide a driver and one of the other district vehicles--we have cars, SUVs and vans.

The student I'm thinking about had all manner of behavioral issues that created a safety issue for all of the other bus riders. Every day a private driver picked him up in the vehicle of the day and returned him after school.

[bethy724]

I find the times children spend on buses totally unacceptable & borderline abusive (by the school district not parents who need the service)- I can't sit on a bus over an hour why would a 5 year old be asked to?
My son could spend 1 & 1/2 hours on a bus or I can drive him the 7 minutes away - I thank God I have flex time & realize not all parents have that option - I swear the districts make up the longest routes to keep people from using the service.
Good luck -anything over 20 minutes is too much to ask of a child IMO-you may want to see about car pooling or before school & after school programs so you can drive your child to school or do you have an option to skip a lunch hour so you can drive your child in the morning. My son's school opens 1/2 hour before the 1st bell & has a fee based after school program which makes life easier for me as a single parent.

[la vida loca]

Thank you for all the suggestions. I spoke with her therapist who has some very definite ideas about what is and what is not acceptable. The IEP meeting to address the transportation issues is six days away so hopefully then we will be able to resolve it.

[crick]

*shakes head* Seriously??? Even for a child without special needs, this amount of time just blows my mind!!

We had some bus shortage in our area due to budget cuts, but even with that, my kids get on the bus at 8:45 a.m. and are at school by 9:07 a.m.

Coming home they get on the bus at 4:05 and are dropped off at the stop around 4:20 p.m.

We live about 2 miles from the school so roughly 5 minutes driving time. So I know we are closer to the school than you, but our middle school is about 8 min. away and the bus time is still 25 minutes each way.

[la vida loca]

The IEP meeting was a success. My AD will be riding for half an hour in the morning, and half an hour in the afternoon. There will not be any male bus drivers on her bus (a major sticking point because of the union, but her disability requires that she never be with an adult male without an adult female safety figure present). I hate IEP meetings, but once things are in writing the hard part is over.

[momraine]

One thing to note, in some school districts they are not required to provide transportation. When I drove a bus that was one of the discussions we ended up getting into with parents of a child who would not behave on the bus. His parents kept insisting that he has a right to transportation, however when they tried to sue, they found out that it's not a right. The school must provide an education, but they are not required to provide transportation. Now in some states that is different for special ed students and some may have even passed laws for regular students who live too far out. I did drive mine for a year because the time on the bus was too long, however, the next year I let him ride, but made a point of leaving activities early in our small town and lettin people know my son had to leave because he had to go to bed early to get up at 5 for the bus. Enough people were shocked that the school added another bus so now it's much, much better. Getting a hold of your schools and your states rules is the best first step, then you can know if you have a leg to stand on. I know in another district we lived in the parents also found when the schools moved the lines of where you could live and get bus service from one mile from the school to two miles, that the school was not required to transport thier kids. The parents who lived almost two miles had to figure something out. I know one family paid another gas money to drive thier kids.