Rhode Island ACLU: Letter To Department Of Education Calls For Immediate Action To Address Providence School Bus Transportation Fiasco

From the Rhode Island Chapter of the ACLU:

Responding to a “catastrophic” failure of school transportation services in Providence that left many students with disabilities stranded in getting to or from school last week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, joined by the R.I. Center for Justice, today sent a letter to state Department of Education officials, demanding that they take immediate steps to ensure that those students have appropriate transportation to and from school.

Last week, Dattco Motorcoach, the private contractor hired by RIDE to handle school transportation this year in Providence, and whose school system RIDE controls, failed to cover numerous routes and left many students with disabilities waiting for hours at bus stops or denied transportation home. Parents who contacted the ACLU described getting calls late in the afternoon that they would need to pick up their child due to the lack of bus service, and the ACLU/CFJ letter notes that for “students with medical needs, lengthy delays in busing can adversely affect their health.” The special education plans of many students with disabilities explicitly require schools to provide them appropriate transportation services.

RIDE officials have also condemned the company’s performance and sent a letter to Dattco on Friday demanding that the problems be fixed within ten days. But the ACLU/CFJ letter, addressed to RIDE Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green and chief legal counsel Anthony Cottone, states that “RIDE does not have ten days to fix this problem; it needs to fix it now.”

The letter to RIDE, signed by ACLU of RI cooperating attorneys Ellen Saideman and Lynette Labinger, ACLU/RI executive director Steven Brown, and Jennifer Wood from the Center for Justice, calls on the agency to take the following steps immediately:

1. Work with the Governor to have an executive order issued that would allow Dattco to temporarily operate buses with bus drivers licensed in other states.
2. Post information on RIDE’s website each evening with information about the status of bus route coverage for the upcoming school day.
3. Create an alternative plan for every route without a driver to ensure that each student gets to and from school on time.
4. Provide a dedicated phone line for parents to call to troubleshoot and resolve problems.
5. Provide financial compensation to parents forced to drive their children to school or to hire car services to get them to school on time.
6. Provide compensatory education for any time that students miss school because of the lack of, or delay in, busing.

The letter seeks a response from RIDE by noon tomorrow, and noted that, if not expeditiously resolved, the matter could lead to litigation.

This is not the first school bus fiasco that students with disabilities in Rhode Island – and the ACLU – have had to deal with. In 2018, the ACLU, along with Rhode Island Legal Services, took legal action when a school bus strike deprived Providence special education students of necessary transportation. In that case, the matter was resolved when the strike ended, restoring bus service, and the school district agreed to provide the students with compensatory educational services and the parents with financial reimbursement for the costs they incurred in getting their children to and from school.

ACLU of RI cooperating attorney Ellen Saideman said today: “It is outrageous that RIDE did not make sure that every bus route was fully staffed prior to the first day of school and has left parents to fend for themselves without any support and with little, if any, information.  This problem needs to be corrected immediately, not in ten days.”