WASHINGTON — A lawsuit has been filed against The Office of The State Superintendent of Education. The Children law center alleges several families cannot rely on transportation that they provide for their kids with disabilities.
“Every single day we are not sure if the service that the district is supposed to provide is going to show up or not,” mother, Elizabeth Daggett said.
Elizabeth Daggett battles constant anxiety when it’s time for her 13-year-old son with disabilities to be picked up and dropped off for school.
“We’ve had to either pick my son up or take him to school because the bus didn’t have the safety anchor that’s needed for his harness so they couldn’t transport him to or from school,” Daggett said.
She has documented and shared several posts on twitter when the bus was late.
Daggett says the bus is almost never on time based on this schedule issued by the office of the state superintendent of education showing the scheduled drop-off time as 3:09 p.m.
“It’s usually 4:30 as the average time,” Daggett said. “And then when it’s really bad or overlaps, it’s like 5:30 within the past couple of weeks.”
Thursday, the Arc of the United States, Children’s Law Center, Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, and Urban Affairs, and McDermott Will & Emery have filed a federal complaint on behalf of six families who say they have issues with transportation.
“This lawsuit is really a last result, but we’re hoping that this lawsuit will be what brings the systemic change so that families and students in DC can get transportation services that they need,” Deputy Legal Director at the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Kaitlin Banner said.
Daggett said this issue complicates the rest of her and her family’s scheduled, and they’ve had to now hire extra help.
“It affects not just the ability of my son to get to school but the ability of my husband and I to get our other two kids to school, the ability to meet our work obligations,” Daggett said.
“This lawsuit we hope will bring a lot of relief to families in the district and give them a service they can rely on,” Banner said.
Daggett said, on Thursday her son’s bus did not arrive until 4:23 p.m., but it was expected at 3:09 p.m.
WUSA 9 reached out to The Office of the State Superintendent of Education and they responded saying “The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) does not comment on pending litigation. “
We also checked in with the mayor’s office but have not heard back.
Meanwhile Children's Law Center is asking families to share their experiences if they have had issues on their website.