Why Is School Bussing in Ontario for Students with Disabilities and Others So Inconsistent and Unreliable?

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update

United for a Barrier-Free Ontario for All People with Disabilities

Website: www.aodaalliance.org

Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com

Twitter: @aodaalliance

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/aodaalliance

 

Why Is School Bussing in Ontario for Students with Disabilities and Others So Inconsistent and Unreliable?

 

October 25, 2024

 

SUMMARY

 

A recurring and serious disability barrier in Ontario’s publicly funded school system is a pattern of inconsistent and unreliable school bussing for students with disabilities. Many students with disabilities cannot be accommodated in their local school. Therefore, school boards must provide bussing to the school where they are placed.

 

A large proportion of students in Ontario school who receive bussing are students with disabilities. Therefore, the inconsistency and unreliability of school bussing disproportionately hurts students with disabilities. This is a disability issue, pure and simple.

 

Yet another horrendous problem took place in Toronto last week. One of the bus companies that provides bussing for the Toronto District School Board and the Toronto Catholic District School Board had to cancel buses for a day or two, stranding hundreds of students. It turns out that their bus drivers did not have licenses to drive the buses they had been driving students around in for weeks. See an October 18, 2024, Toronto Star report on this mess, below.

 

How could this happen in 2024? Who screwed up? Who was monitoring to prevent such screw-ups? What safeguards were in place to prevent this? What will the Ontario Government do to prevent this from happening again?

 

Almost three years ago, the Ford Government received recommendations calling for reforms to protect students with disabilities in Ontario schools, including in the area of school bussing. In its groundbreaking 2022 report to the Ford Government, the Government-appointed K-12 Education Standards Development Committee made detailed findings and recommendations on how school bussing should be reformed to better protect students with disabilities. We set out those recommendations below.

 

The Ford Government, to our knowledge, has not implemented these recommendations. It has still not enacted the promised Education Accessibility Standard, more than two and a half years after receiving the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee’s final report.

 

How You Can Help

 

  • Once again, we encourage you to write a letter to the editor at the Toronto Star. Applaud the Star for covering this issue. If you are a parent of a student with a disability, tell your story on this issue in 300 words or less. Write the Star at lettertoed@thestar.ca

 

  • Email Premier Ford. Demand that he pass a strong Education Accessibility Standard under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Write him at premier@ontario.ca

 

  • If you know any parents of students with disabilities in Ontario schools, encourage them to watch the AODA Alliance’s video that gives tips on how to advocate for their child’s needs at school. Publicize it on social media.

 

Let us know what actions you take! Send us feedback at aodafeedback@gmail.com

 

For More Background

 

Check out the AODA Alliance’s online video series on what needs to be done to tear down the many accessibility barriers that impede students with disabilities from fully participating in and fully benefitting from our education system.

 

Visit the AODA Alliance website’s education page.

 

MORE DETAILS

 

Toronto Star October 18, 2024

Originally posted at https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/over-100-toronto-school-buses-cancelled-for-a-second-day-heres-what-happened/article_4de1a18c-8c84-11ef-986d-9f271af33205.html

 

Over 100 Toronto school buses cancelled for a second day. Here’s what happened

About 100 routes will remain out of service Friday, affecting roughly 1,200 students, but full service should resume by Monday

 

More than 140 Toronto school bus routes were abruptly cancelled Thursday — impacting some 1,600 students — after it was discovered the drivers did not have the correct licence to operate the vehicles.

 

About 100 routes will remain without service Friday, affecting roughly 1,200 students, but full service should resume by Monday, says Toronto Student Transportation Group (TSTG), which runs the busing operation for the city’s schools.

TSTG runs the bus routes for both the Toronto Catholic District School Board and the Toronto District School Board. It works with various transportation companies, including First Student, to provide service.

 

Through an internal audit, First Student discovered that its drivers didn’t have the right licence for newly purchased 28-passenger school buses that have been on the road since the start of the school year — their licenses are valid for a bus of up to 24 passengers.

 

On Wednesday night, First Student notified TSTG that it had to halt service, and TSTG cancelled the routes.

 

“This is just unacceptable,” said Kevin Hodgkinson, general manager of TSTG, adding it’s the responsibility of First Student to ensure their drivers have the appropriate licence, noting the company will face penalties. “There’s no excuse for this at all….It’s absolutely unfortunate for the students who are being impacted by this.”

 

In a joint statement, the school boards said they were “deeply disappointed” and are monitoring the situation closely.

 

“We understand the significant inconvenience and disruption this caused for students, families, and schools who were provided very little notice by First Student about these route cancellations,” they wrote in an email.

 

On Thursday, 143 school bus routes were cancelled — about 12 per cent of all routes — impacting 394 students at 65 Catholic schools; and 1,225 at 154 public schools. Just over 100 routes will remain without service Friday, affecting 295 students at 57 Catholic schools and 959 at 134 public schools. Most are children with special education needs.

 

To drive a school bus in Ontario, you need a B or E class licence: a B licence allows you to drive a school bus with more than 24 passengers; a class E licence is for buses with up to 24 passengers. To obtain either, applicants must pass a medical examination, knowledge test, vision screen criminal check, and successfully complete a driving test in a vehicle of appropriate seating capacity.

 

First Student recently added more than 100 new 28-passenger school buses to its Toronto fleet, which requires a B class licence.

 

“An internal audit showed the buses require a different certification than the 24-passenger school buses that some drivers were operating,” Jen Biddinger, the communications manager at First Student, told the Star in an email. She said the company is securing enough 24-passenger buses from other company locations to restore all service by Monday. Moving forward, its drivers will be required to have a B licence.

 

Disability rights activist David Lepofsky said it’s the responsibility of a company to ensure its drivers have valid licences — and of school boards to provide adequate oversight.

 

“I want to know where the failure is,” said Lepofsky, chair of the Special Education Advisory Committee at the TDSB, which represents concerns of parents who have kids with disabilities or special education needs.

 

“Parents of students who rely on busing aren’t there to police the school boards and see how they interact with the bus companies. They give their kid over to the school board and trust them to hire bus companies, which are safe to take care of their children and have proper licences for their drivers.”

 

Lepofsky said canceling the bus routes, without providing alternate transportation, is “an absolutely unfair and undue hardship on parents of kids with special education needs. And that piles on top of all the other barriers their families have had to face in the school system.”

 

Karen Littlewood, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, says “There’s enough arranging that goes into parenting to begin with, but when you throw a curve ball like this in with very little notice, it doesn’t allow for education to run smoothly.”

 

“It’s just another disruption in a system that’s getting close to being broken due to lack of funding and shortchanging. This is about how thin the system is; how there’s limited availability of bus drivers,” said Littlewood.

 

She notes how in Renfrew County, northwest of Ottawa, where a contract dispute has left 11,000 students without busing since the start of the school year, there has been a struggle to get drivers to return to their jobs despite a recent agreement in principle.

 

While the current Toronto situation may resolve quickly, problems with busing — from poor pay for drivers to inadequate training — continue across the province, says Littlewood.

 

“We don’t have a backup system at all. We’re running below empty. The fuel light is on right now and we need to get help right away.”

 

School transportation is funded by the province, but there is a patchwork of contracts between bus operators and school boards. The province has boosted transportation funding to boards by $80 million this year, or about six per cent, for a total of $1.3 billion.

 

A list of affected routes is available on the TSTG website.

 

Excerpts from the January 28, 2022 Final Report to the Ontario Government of the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee

 

Originally posted at https://www.aodaalliance.org/whats-new/download-in-an-accessible-ms-word-format-the-final-report-of-the-k-12-education-standards-development-committee-on-what-the-promised-education-accessibility-standardshould-include/

Transportation recommendations

 

  1. The obligations under this part of the standards should be binding, both on school boards and transportation consortia. Both parties have the duty to adhere to the standards and to work together to ensure that the rights of students with disabilities are honoured.

Timeline: six months

Rationale: up to three organizations may be involved in the transportation of students: A School Board, a consortium of school boards that jointly arrange for student transportation, and private bus companies that are contracted to provide busing in that area. Students with disabilities and their parents/caregivers should not have to try to figure out who is responsible for their child’s transportation needs. The following should be required of all three organizations.

 

  1. To ensure that students with disabilities get the transportation services they need to attend school this recommendation will set criteria for creating monitoring and accountability. The Education Accessibility Standards should require that where a school board provides busing or other transportation services to students with disabilities in order to enable them to attend school, the school board/bus company’s/transportation consortia shall review and develop policies and procedures that include:

 

81.1 individual consultation with each family to identify accessibility and accommodation needs of the student with disabilities in relation to transportation.

 

81.2 ensure the Transportation Consortia/bus companies and drivers have been properly trained to accommodate students with disabilities and their individual needs.

 

81.3 with any bus driver that is changed, they are given the same information and training prior to driving the student, or, in the case of an emergency replacement, as soon as possible.

 

81.4 clearly reflect the responsibilities and duties of the school board/bus companies/transportation consortia and acknowledge that they have the shared responsibility to make sure the duties are fulfilled.

 

81.5 retention of training records, including when it was provided and report to their respective boards on training twice per year.

 

81.6 designate and provide a reachable official at the school board and the transportation, especially during the working hours when students are being transported, to receive and address phone calls, emails and text messages from a family about problems regarding the student’s transportation.

 

81.7 documentation of all complaints reported on student transportation services, and the company to which it applies. A summary report including number of complaints, types of complaints and status, be provided to the school board, transportation consortia, Special Education Advisory Committees and accessibility committee on a quarterly basis. These reports shall be made public on the school board’s and transportation consortium’s website.

 

81.8 the Education Accessibility Standards should make it clear that the fact that the policies and procedures created does not remove or reduce the school board/bus companies/transportation consortia’s duties under these accessibility standards or otherwise under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act,2005, the Ontario Human Rights Code or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to ensure that the student has been provided with barrier-free participation in the school board’s educational programs and opportunities. In any contract for busing, the school boards/bus company’s/transportation consortia should be required to monitor compliance with all obligations regarding busing, such as the duty to properly train each bus driver on the specific disability-related needs of each passenger, and to document this training. School Boards/bus company’s/transportation consortia should periodically audit consumer satisfaction and compliance with all applicable education accessibility standards and publicly report on the audit’s results. A bus company’s failure to consistently and reliably meet its obligations should trigger penalties and termination of the contract.

 

81.9 a valuation process for past performance and provision of transportation services for students with disabilities should be included in the Request for Proposal for busing. A valuation of any company’s past performance on accessibility for students with disabilities should be given a major consideration in deciding the continued use of service. The Education Accessibility Standard should require:

 

82.The Ministry of Education to provide a formula for school board transportation funding that will enable each school board to require transportation companies to pay bus drivers a high enough wage to provide consistent and reliable service.

 

83.To enhance reliable transportation services are provided to students with disabilities, each Transportation Consortium should establish a permanent oversight committee, with membership from a senior representative or representatives from each school board, a student with lived experience and a representative or representatives from the company providing transportation services.

 

84.It should be a mandatory term of any contract with a school bus company that for each infraction during which the bus company fails to effectively meet the needs of students with disabilities, a mandatory substantial financial penalty (e.g. at least $5,000 per incident) will be imposed on the bus company.

 

Examples of infractions:

  1. A bus driver that does not follow reporting procedures to notify dispatch, parents and school when there is a significant difference in expected drop off or pick up times (more than 45 min) of a student. Additionally, the bus company is not reachable, in real time, by school or parents.
  2. A bus driver fails to follow safety protocols and procedures, and leaves a student on a bus for hours.
  3. The driver fails to follow safety procedures that results in a student being harmed.

85.Each school board shall develop an online accessible portal and an over the phone application process (for families with no internet access) to enable families to directly sign up for busing services. This portal will be available throughout the year to create greater efficiency and responsiveness as well as reducing delays in filing busing requests.

Timeline: six months

 

  1. The Education Accessibility Standards should require that where a school board provides busing or other transportation to students with disabilities in order to enable them to attend school, the school board shall ensure, and shall monitor to ensure that:

 

86.1 the school board has individually consulted with each family to identify the accessibility and accommodation needs of the student with disabilities in relation to transportation, and the bus company and driver have been properly trained to accommodate that need.

Timeline: six months

 

  1. The Education Accessibility Standards should require that the school board and, where applicable, a bus company with which it contracts, will ensure that pick-up and drop-off locations for a student’s busing are accessible when needed to accommodate the parents or caregivers of students with disabilities.

Timeline: immediate

 

Bullying/cyberbullying workshops recommendation

  1. As a part of efforts to educate the entire school community about inclusion of students and school community members with disabilities, all school boards will develop and implement workshops to educate on and address bullying and cyberbullying in schools and the impacts that they can have on students’ physical and mental health. These workshops need to be informed and facilitated by peer groups of young persons with disabilities and without disabilities. The workshops are to be presented to all members of the school community.

Timeline: six months