School of hard walks!
90K may lose bus service
New York City schools may be back in session in September, but 90,000 students might no longer have a school bus to take them.
The city Department of Education is considering a plan to make buses available only for special-needs students whose transportation is legally required, a source knowledgeable about the system told The Post.
“My understanding is that they’re not going to provide general education busing,” the insider said.
The DOE confirmed that it was “assessing” a truncated transportation plan.
“Our priority will be to provide busing to students with [individualized education plan] mandates for transportation, and we are working to develop alternatives in partnerships with the MTA and [Taxi and Limousine Commission],” said DOE spokeswoman Miranda Barbot.
Barbot would not say whether grade-schoolers will have to take subways, buses, cabs or walk.
Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza announced on Wednesday that schools would reopen with a “blended model” of instruction that would have students return to classrooms for alternating one-, two- or three-day weeks. Online instruction would supplement the schedule.
The DOE has ignored parents’ questions about busing. In conference calls with parents and DOE reps last week, queries about transportation went unanswered, said Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children of New York.
“They didn’t have a plan that they shared,” Sweet said. “Families often have big problems with busing in the best of times, so I anticipate this is going to be a very big challenge.”
The DOE normally provides buses to students in kindergarten through second grade who live more than a half-mile from their school, and to thirdthrough sixth-graders who live more than a mile away. Those in grades 7 and up get MetroCards.
Staten Island — with poor transit, streets lacking sidewalks and middle schools that are miles apart — is the only borough where school buses serve seventh- and eighth-graders.
“The entire island is a transit desert,” said Councilman Joe Borelli, who represents the borough’s South Shore and has a son going into kindergarten. “It takes 30 minutes to get an Uber, and I haven’t seen a yellow cab here since Noah floated by on an ark.
“How in heaven’s sake are public-school kids going to even get to the school on the few days they’re allowed to be there?”
Losing buses would make the school reopening even tougher on working parents.
“Add families who live far away from schools to the list of people the reopening plan screws,” Borelli (R) said.
Sara Catalinotto, head of Parents to Improve School Transportation, said busing seems like an afterthought for the city.
“The students who needed busing before still need it,” she said, adding that forcing students onto crowded subways and MTA buses did not seem safe in a pandemic.
Parents of special-needs students said they had heard nothing about how their often medically vulnerable children would be protected from the coronavirus. The city buses about 52,000 special-needs students.
“How would school buses be disinfected?” asked Amy Ming Tsai, a parent on District 75’s busing committee. “Would it be a daily cleanup of the interior of the bus? Would it be after every route? Clear guidance has to be given to parents.”
Michael Cordiello, president of ATU Local 1181 — which represents bus drivers, attendants and mechanics for 10 major school-bus companies — said his union has heard nothing about safety protocols.
“We’re asking that all children get their temperature taken” by an attendant, Cordiello said.
He said the union would also ask that drivers, attendants, students and even adults who drop off or pick up students to wear masks, and that students sit at a recommended distance apart, such as one to a seat in every other seat.