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It’s high time for a thorough federal criminal investigation of the entire NYC DOE system for transporting kids with disabilities. We get recurrent mini-scandals every few years, with the feds focusing on mobbed-up busing firms and unions. It’s pretty obvious that there’s no way that these firms could function without – at a minimum – the tacit approval of all of the NYC DOE’s Office of Pupil Transportation – and maybe a lot more than tacit approval.

Last time I stood outside a District 75 school to count students, and buses, and minivans, I observed that a large school which was supposed to have all its kids transported on small, expensive, minivans actually had its kids transported on far fewer cheap, regular, big yellow school buses. I’m sure the minivans cost the NYC DOE a pretty penny, most of which represented profit for services not rendered to the transportation firm(s) involved.

We need a federal investigation that goes right up the NYC DOE food chain, to OPT, and then above, to the higher officials who protect this well-organized scheme.

We published a picture, back in 2003, of a hole a special ed. bus matron had punched in a disabled child’s stomach because he stood up on the minivan as it was pulling into his private special ed. school’s driveway. The school’s staff had previously complained because this van’s staff were extremely rough with these young autistic children, which OPT did absolutely nothing about. The OPT investigation found that it was appropriate for the matron to – literally – punch a hole in the wall of the child’s stomach because he had stood up while the van was still moving. And NYC media reports about OPT threatening parents with cancellation of their kids’ school transportation when they persist in pushing complaints of busing staff abuse are simply legend.

Let’s get it straight: this fish rots from the head. Far time for this head to be examined, in great, criminal detail.

Dee Alpert, Publisher
SpecialEducationMuckraker.com