WASHINGTON — The District says it’s making progress in eliminating busing delays for students with special needs, but some families claim it’s not happening quickly enough.
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education [OSSE] runs the DC school bus system for students with special needs.
In January, many parents started criticizing the agency when buses started showing up to their stops more than an hour late or not at all.
At one point, in January, more than 80 OSSE buses a day, meant to transport students with disabilities, were either delayed or did not run their routes.
OSSE blamed the issue on staffing shortages at the time.
The office says it’s made headway in addressing the problem since then.
Over the last several weeks, OSSE says its fleet has experienced an on-time rate of 93% with delays typically ranging around 10 to 15 minutes.
OSSE says it’s contracted with several private companies to cover more than 50 routes and that it’s also onboarding 100 additional attendants and drivers as a result of its February hiring fair.
But some families say 15-minute delays can still be a lot to deal with especially when their children have to already be on buses for hours at a time daily.
D.C. resident Nikki Floyd’s family depends on OSSE busing to get her child to school in Rockville.
“We’re up at 5:30 in the morning to get him on a 6:30 bus for an 8:45 start at school and he gets off school at 3:15 and he doesn’t get home until well after 5 o’clock,” she said. “Because his delay is so long, he doesn’t come home with the energy to do anything else.”
Floyd said Friday proved to be particularly challenging when she and other parents got a text from OSSE that they had to suddenly arrange for someone to pick their children up from school.
“It indicated that the buses would not be running that afternoon due to a fire at the Fifth street bus yard,” she said.
Floyd later learned a medical emergency was the reason OSSE alerted families about a potential delay.
However, she said when she raced up to Rockville, to pick up her son, she was surprised yet again.
“He pointed out his bus which was waiting there for him,” Floyd said.
D.C. resident Chioma Oruh also uses OSSE to bus her kids to a school in Rockville and said families like hers are being run thin.
“We’re being stressed and stretched from so many corners,” she said.
Oruh added she’s skeptical her family won’t experience the same delays with OSSE next school year.
“I’m just holding my breath for when we return back to school because every point of transition after break, after winter break, after spring break, there’s always these very painful glitches,” she said.