When school transportation goes awry, parents of D.C. special-education students dial the call center.
The call center, housed in the Office of the State Superintendent for Education, handles 330 calls a day — about one for every 11 students who the city buses to school because their neighborhood school can’t provide the special-education services the student requires.
Depending on whom you ask, the call center is a place where inspirational messages are passed out and volunteers take care of parents’ concerns. Or it’s a place where annoyed employees tell you the bus broke down, but don’t know where the bus is.
At a D.C. Council hearing on special-education transportation, parents and local officials discussed concerns as the city tries to cut the $26,000-per-student cost of busing special-needs children to school.
“You should be happy someone is coming to pick up your child and take them to school,” Marty Clark, a parent and Ward 7 resident, said he was told by operators.
When the air conditioner broke on the bus that takes his daughter to Baltimore, Clark says he was asked, “If you knew the AC was broken on the bus, why didn’t you keep your baby at home?”
Ja Sent Brown, a member of the D.C. State Advisory Panel on Special Education, saysshe was similarly disillusioned when she volunteered a year ago.
But returning this year, she discovered a changed system.
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“Everyone had a clear assignment and was trained to perform it,” she said. A dedicated line for bus dispatchers had been implemented, and director Kim Davis passed out an inspirational message every morning.
D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown said he was concerned by the conflicting picture. “This was this summer, this didn’t happen two years ago,” he said.
OSSE began outfitting its fleet with GPS in October, and a new system at the call center records everything from who’s on the line to how long the call lasts. OSSE also hired in-house mechanics to cut down on repair times of buses, and is replacing its bus fleet.
“We do not tolerate disrespect of anyone,” Superintendent Hosanna Mahaley said.
