The measure, which does not eliminate the administration of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exam, but rather its role as a graduation requirement, passed with of voters in support and 41% opposed, with 96% of votes reported as of Wednesday afternoon. The “yes” vote was particularly strong in western Massachusetts, while towns and cities in the greater Boston area were more likely to vote against it, according to reporting from . In Weston, one of the state’s wealthiest communities, 2 in 3 voters cast ballots in opposition, according to the Globe. 

Students still must meet the state’s course requirements of gym and American history and civics, along with locally determined measures, set by the some 300 school districts. 

When asked about next steps at a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Maura Healey, who was a of the measure, said “The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will be out with guidance shortly on that 
 But the voters spoke on that question. And I don’t know what will come as of just yet.”

In response to a question about her willingness to entertain bills that would overturn the measure, Healey said, “I’ll review anything that comes to my desk, but I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals.” 

Those who wanted to keep the requirement and see the ballot measure defeated — including Massachusetts Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler and the National Parents Union — argued that the MCAS is a high-quality assessment that is necessary to hold schools accountable, communicate progress with students and their parents, and establish consistent academic expectations statewide.

Those in favor of the ballot measure — backed by the statewide — argued that the testing requirement narrowed curriculum, forcing teachers to “teach to the test.” Each year, more than 700 students — including many English language learners and students with disabilities — are unable to graduate because they didn’t pass the MCAS or because they didn’t meet local district requirements.

Historically, approximately 70,000 10th graders sat for at least one of the three MCAS exams each year. Based on state policies, students had to earn a passing score on all three exams to earn a diploma. Those who didn’t could try again at least four times and some students were able to participate in an appeal process or an alternative pathway. Ultimately, the vast majority of students — about 99% — met the requirements.

“With this election victory, voters have welcomed a new era in our public schools,” said Massachusetts Teachers Association President Max Page and Vice President Deb McCarthy in a following the announcement that voters approved Question 2. “This is the beginning of more holistic and thorough assessments of student work.” 

Leading the charge on the ballot measure, the union poured $7.7 million into its campaign as of Oct. 1 and opponents spent $1.2 million, according to reporting from the .

John Schneider, the chair of , a coalition opposed to the ballot measure, said in a statement that, “Eliminating the graduation requirement without a replacement is reckless. The passage of Question 2 opens the door to greater inequity; our coalition intends to ensure that door does not stay open.”

This point was echoed by the president of the , Keri Rodrigues, in an interview with ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ Wednesday afternoon.

“I think it’s a strong signal about what we’ve been warning about: that we’re going to watch the inequities in Massachusetts kind of just go wider and wider and wider” as more affluent districts largely maintain high standards and others lower theirs.

Rodrigues said she and other advocates will immediately begin calling for legislation that implements new statewide graduation requirements based on , a state-recommended program of study, which includes the successful completion of four credits of English, math and a lab-based science, along with a number of other requirements.

James Peyser, former state education secretary, is similarly concerned about the new lack of regulation. “We had [a graduation standard],” he told ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ. “I think it was working well, and I’m disappointed that the ballot question passed because it replaces something — something that’s working — with nothing. But we need to fill that void as quickly as possible.”

(Correction appended November 7, 2024)

Massachusetts mom Shelley Scruggs says she’s spent the last decade thinking and worrying about standardized testing — specifically the three exams her son would need to pass in order to earn a high school diploma.

A junior at a technical high school in Lexington, her son, who has ADD and an Individualized Education Program, has always found greater success with interactive, hands-on learning and is now studying plumbing.

Last spring, he took the English, science and math exams. While she believes it’s important to assess how kids are doing in school, a frustrated Scruggs sees the exam requirement as forcing teachers to teach to a test, narrowing curriculum, putting undue stress on students and making the most vulnerable feel bad about themselves.

Her son is one of the approximately 70,000 10th graders who sit for at least one of the three Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exams each year. Based on state policies, students must earn a passing score on all three exams to earn a diploma. Those who don’t can try again at least four times and some students are able to participate in an appeal process or an alternative pathway. Ultimately, the vast majority of students — about 99% — meet the requirements.

Scruggs said her son’s experiences motivated her to try and repeal the state’s graduation requirement. She drafted a ballot initiative last year and began collecting signatures, ultimately joining efforts with the Massachusetts Teachers Association. After collecting 170,000 signatures, the union got the question officially certified on the Nov 6 ballot, where it will appear as Question 2.

Lexington parent Shelley Scruggs, who initiated the ballot question to end the MCAS grad requirement, told legislators: This test “penalizes students like my son who are just not good test-takers.”

— Massachusetts Teachers Association (@massteacher)

The measure does not propose eliminating the administration of the MCAS exam, but rather its role as a statewide graduation requirement. If it passes, students in Massachusetts would still need to meet the state’s course requirements of gym and American history and civics, along with locally determined requirements set by the roughly 300 school districts.

Scruggs recently got a call from her son’s guidance counselor: He passed his math and science MCAS exams, but failed the English exam by one point. Describing it “as the best phone call I ever got in my life,” she remains staunchly opposed to the graduation requirement and is campaigning alongside the union in favor of Question 2.Ìę

The statewide teachers association has spent more than on the effort.  MTA President Max Page told  , “We’ve long  believed that this fixation on this one test does not help us understand how a student or school is doing.” 

Page, and other union representatives, did not respond to ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ’s multiple requests for comment. 

Those who want to keep the requirement and see the ballot measure defeated — including Gov. Maura Healey, Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler and The National Parents Union  — argue that the MCAS is a high-quality assessment that is necessary to hold schools accountable, communicate progress with students and their parents and establish consistent academic expectations statewide.

According to the conducted between Oct. 2-6 by Suffolk University and the Globe, 58% of the 500 Massachusetts residents surveyed plan to vote “yes,” on Question 2, eliminating the MCAS graduation requirement, and 37% plan to vote “no.”

The state education department recently released the which predictably dropped in the pandemic’s wake and following the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s decision — implemented for the first time this spring —  to for what’s considered a passing score.

Statewide, 10th graders exceeded or met expectations on the English exam, 48% on the math exam, and 49% on the science one.  Historically, only of students — around 700 total — ultimately miss the requirement, the majority of whom are English language learners or have a disability.

Massachusetts resident Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union and the parent of five kids, one of whom receives special education services, believes that getting rid of the requirement in the name of kids with disabilities is “really offensive.”

“[My son] absolutely took and passed the MCAS 
 Kids like Matthew are capable not only of proficiency,” she said, “but excellence.”

Rodrigues argued that the data collected from MCAS scores actually contribute to equity, rather than detracting from it.

“The idea that we would just toss away data and call it social justice,” she said, “is just — it’s wild to me
 we need more data and information on our kids so that we can be better equipped to help them and figure out what the challenges are.”

Massachusetts as a bellwether

The MCAS graduation requirement goes back to the 1993 Education Reform Act; it’s been used since 2003 as part of the graduation standard. Before that, the only state requirements were a U.S. history course credit and gym classes.

And what happens in Massachusetts, ranked the top state for public education nationally, matters greatly, said James Peyser, former state education secretary.

“I think Massachusetts in many ways is a bellwether for what goes on around the country
 If a question like this succeeds here, I think it’ll send a signal to policymakers and to union leaders and educators 
 around the country that maybe it’s time to abandon the whole exercise,” he said.

As election day nears and the debate intensifies, neither side wants to focus on the high passing rate, according to Evan Horowitz, the executive director of at Tufts University who authored on the ballot measure. He found that those who don’t pass the MCAS typically don’t meet district requirements for graduation either.

Those in favor of the exam insist it’s a rigorous standard and those opposed insist it’s an unfair hurdle, “so there’s sort of no constituency to the argument that actually this test might be too easy to really matter, certainly too easy to have a big, statewide fight over,” he said. 

John Papay, director of the at Brown University and lead author of on the MCAS exam, said both test scores and course grades predict longer-term student outcomes and test scores can tell us something beyond grades about how well high schoolers are prepared for college and career. 

He remains concerned about how well vulnerable student groups are being served overall. 

“The question about the exit exam is a little bit of a red herring around this bigger, critically important question about, ‘How are we ensuring that English learners [and] students with disabilities, are getting the skills that they need out of the Massachusetts public education system?’”

Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the reach of the ballot proposition. The measure proposes the elimination of the MCASÌęexam as a statewide graduation requirement. If it passes, students in Massachusetts would still need to meet the state’s course requirements of gym and American history and civics, along with locally determined measures, set by the roughly 300 school districts.Ìę

Luis’s mother said the boy stopped socializing after his fourth grade class at his Los Angeles Unified school in Southeast L.A. shut down. She asked that the family not be identified in order to protect her son. 

He began having behavioral issues. He fell way behind in his academics — all after not receiving his mandated services of behavior, speech, and occupational therapies or his one-on-one aid over Zoom. 

Now back in school, Luis needs two years of missed services to catch up, said his mother.

“He needs these services again as soon as possible,” said Luis’s mother.  “I have no other options.” 

Hopefully, Luis will soon get the services he needs. 

LAUSD agreed to provide these services to Luis and more than 66,000 district students with disabilities in with the federal Office of Civil Rights after an investigation revealed students were not provided federally-mandated services during the pandemic.

The broadly-worded nine page agreement calls for the district to create a plan providing students the compensatory services, staff training and ongoing communication with parents on the plan’s status. 

Concerned about how the district’s Special Education Division will implement the services, disability rights lawyers, advocates and parents offered ideas on what LAUSD needs to provide to the students — including mental health services, more special education teachers, more staff training, better transportation to services and a bigger special education budget.

“I’m concerned [the resolution] is a way for the district to look compliant without fixing root issues,” said Jill Rowland, Education Program Director at the Alliance for Children’s Rights, which advocates for the rights of foster care youth in schools in California.  

“We need transportation support to get kids to the providers at centers outside of their schools,” she said. “We need translation services to help students and families who don’t speak fluent English. There’s also already such a shortage of staff, especially for students with disabilities.”

The agreement also calls for L.A. Unified to provide ‘compensatory services’ to students with disabilities, which means the district has acknowledged claims they denied a free and appropriate public education to some students during the pandemic. 

L.A. special education lawyer Chris Eisenberg said the resolution is another tool for lawyers, advocates, and parents to use in holding LAUSD accountable to provide students’ services. 

“I’m hoping that this admission from LAUSD will push them in a better direction,” said Eisenberg “With people breathing down their necks, now they will have to be held accountable to the students.” 

LAUSD’s severe teacher shortage is . The number of students with disabilities in California has been increasing since 2015 and the special education teacher shortage has gotten worse each year. As of 2021, students with disabilities make up 13% of the district’s population.

Special education services are also one of the biggest costs for the district. In 2016, the cost to educate students with disabilities was than that of a general education student. 

“The district has always been concerned with spending too much on special education,” said Valerie Vanaman, a special education attorney who has been critical of the district’s treatment of these students during the pandemic. 

Advocates and parents say they want more funds allocated to special education services from the influx of money that the district received for pandemic relief.

Luis’ mom, who said she’s been disappointed with the quality of the services provided to her son, wants aids, therapists, teachers, and tutors that understand her son’s particular issues.

“He deserves better services and a better life than what they’re offering,” said the mom. “I’ve lost faith in them.”

Lisa Barros Mosko, a parent who was director of Speak Up, an L.A. special education advocacy group when the nonprofit produced showing said their children weren’t getting services during the pandemic, said there had been an ongoing problem with services for years. 

“The pandemic really shed light on the inequities and lack of services for kids with disabilities in the district.”

Advocates and parents also said they were concerned about which officials from L.A. Unified will supervise the district’s work on the resolution. They are concerned that it will be the same leadership that denied their children services during the pandemic. 

“How can we trust the same people who neglected our children’s needs in the first place?” Mosko said. “I think we need completely new leadership in order to rebuild trust.”

A Los Angeles Unified spokesperson said in a statement the district has agreed to “critical components” such as staff training and ongoing outreach to special education parents and advocates. 

“L.A. Unified remains dedicated to helping all students, including students with disabilities, recover from the pandemic and achieve their educational goals,” the spokesperson said.

Hundreds of Connecticut special education students who have attended  have been subjected to restraints and seclusion, teachers without certification and improper services, according to a scathing report released Tuesday by the Office of the Child Advocate and Disability Rights Connecticut.

In one academic year, there were more than 1,200 reports of students being restrained or secluded in High Road schools, the report states.

Connecticut Child Advocate Sarah Eagan said a two-year investigation of six schools in Hartford, New London, Wallingford and other towns found “an alarming lack of oversight, systemic failings and often flagrant disregard for statutory requirements and state standards that protect the educational rights and safety of children.”

“Practices routinely fall short of state laws, education regulations, best practices, or all three. Changes need to be put in place without delay,” Eagan said.

High Road is one of the Connecticut’s largest state-approved private special education providers, and it primarily serves children from low-income school districts and receives millions in public funds annually, according to the report. 

The 57-page report said the state Department of Education, along with the school districts that sent students to High Road schools, failed to visit the campuses regularly and did not ensure compliance with the federal . 

“Many of the students at High Road Schools were grossly underserved both in terms of educational planning and service delivery,” the report said. “The investigation revealed widespread student disengagement and chronic absenteeism across High Road locations, failure to adequately assess and support students’ educational needs through individualized service delivery and perhaps most alarmingly, gross deficiencies in the number of certified special education teachers and other credentialed educational staff working with children and systemic failure to ensure and/or document that staff had undergone employment checks and criminal and child welfare background checks.”

About 316 students were enrolled at six of eight High Road schools in Connecticut during the 2021-22 academic year, with the student body being made up of about 80% boys and 70% students of color from across 38 Connecticut school districts.

Eighty High Road students, or about 25%, were outsourced from Hartford Public Schools, making the capital city’s public school district the “largest district consumer of High Road services,” according to the report.

The state Department of Education said it “vigorously disagree[d] with the conclusions” of the report, adding that the department has been, and is, “attentive to concerns that are brought forth to the State’s attention and engages in off cycle monitoring reviews.”

“During the period of investigation, from 2022 through February 2024, the CSDE received no complaints from parents, from guardians, from students, from attorneys, from parent advocates, or from local or regional school districts regarding High Road schools,” a spokesperson from the department said. “Of note, the CSDE’s Special Education Division annually receives approximately 1,000 filings in the form of hearing requests, mediation requests, or compliance complaints, yet during the period of time covered in the OCA/DRCT Report, not one of those thousands of filings pertained to High Road schools.”

A spokesperson from High Road told The Connecticut Mirror in an emailed statement that the report did “not accurately reflect the academic and behavioral supports at our schools” and that “over the course of two years, High Road Schools provided comprehensive responses that outlined these inaccuracies, as well as highlighted the specific improvements we implemented as part of this process.”

OCA, , and DRCT, , investigated the following campuses: High Road School of Hartford Primary/Middle, High Road School of Hartford High School, High Road B.E.S.T. Academy of Wallingford, High Road School of Fairfield County in Norwalk, High Road School of New London and High Road School of Windham County in Killingly from March 2022 to March 2024 through a series of reviews of educational files, classroom observations and interviews. 

DRCT also visited High Road School of Wallingford Primary School and High Road School of Wallingford High School but did not collect data or records, the report states.

Restraint and seclusion 

Connecticut leads the country in its placement of students with disabilities in “separate schools,” according to the report. 

Most are students of color.

In 2021-22, there were more than 1,200 reported incidents of students being restrained or secluded in High Road schools. Nearly 550 of those incidents were reported from High Road School of Hartford Primary/Middle School, the report states.

“It is concerning that students would be isolated in such a manner and with such frequency. Isolation without adequate and required efforts to address students’ needs also raise serious legal questions under the ADA,” the report said, adding that students were often taken out of classrooms into “time-out rooms” where they weren’t allowed to leave.

Jennifer Hoffman, assistant superintendent for special education and pupil services in Hartford, said  responding to the report that the district has worked OCA and DRCT to continue working toward becoming a “trauma-responsive system” and is in “collective acknowledgment that more works needs to be done, between external systems, to reduce the stressors for families that are sending students to school.”

Hoffman’s letter highlighted efforts to expand special education services and monitoring and oversight of students.

The district declined to provide further comment when contacted by the CT Mirror.

Staffing problems

The investigation found that almost half of the teachers employed at High Road did not have adequate teacher certification from the state of Connecticut or did not undergo proper background checks.

The report found that:

• “In the Windham County Program, 6 out of 8 educational staff had not had DCF background checks;
• In the New London Program, High Road failed to demonstrate that it had verified employment histories, including any concerns of prior student maltreatment, as required by state law;
• In the Fairfield County Program, High Road had not conducted a DCF or employee background check for approximately half of the staff;
• At Hartford-Primary, High Road had not conducted a DCF background check for approximately half of the staff;
• At Wallingford-BEST program, High Road conducted background checks for the majority, but not all of staff working with children.”

The report also said that the Department of Education had previously found that High Road “had not been consistent in conducting background checks” but never followed up.

“State records do not indicate further follow up by CSDE to ensure that corrective actions were implemented and sustained. OCA/DRCT’s investigation found that despite previous complaints, warnings, and directives and despite clear state law obligations and even contractual requirements 
 High Road failed to demonstrate that it consistently conducts background checks for employees working with children,” the report said.

The report added that school administrators “did not communicate staffing gaps to [local educational agencies]” and that data from both High Road and the state Department of Education “reflect a high vacancy rate for certified special education teachers and lack of adequate documentation for substitute teachers and individuals with ‘durational permits,’” including a “heavy reliance on long-term substitute teachers” who may not be “appropriately credentialed and approved” by the state.

There was also no documentation of physical education, art or music teachers at these schools. Nurses were not employed at all buildings, according to the report. 

Lack of individualized programming in the classroom

The report highlighted several deficiencies with student individualized education plans, or IEPs, and a lack of , which are used to determine the cause of certain behaviors and how to address them.

An analysis of 30 student records showed “little evidence 
 of individualized instruction, and general program descriptions refer only to a curriculum comprised of ‘four instructional rotations during which students are assessed academically, gain self-regulation skills, learn with district-aligned academic curriculums and utilize integrated technology,’” the report said.

“Records examined included inconsistent information, lacked evidence of comprehensive evaluations, individualized or personalized instructional or behavioral strategies, and did not indicate that progress or failure to progress were regularly reviewed within programs. Across sites there was an apparent lack of access to related services such as clinical/psychological consultation or service,” the report continued, adding that several campuses did not have occupational and speech language therapy “consistent with descriptions of students’ previous developmental, social/emotional, or educational histories.”

The investigation also found that “almost none of the students” received functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) or behavior intervention plans (BIPs) at several campuses. 

Nor did the schools have a board-certified behavior analyst on staff.

“High Road locations all employ school social workers and offer individual and/or group counseling. However, out of 30 student records reviewed by investigators, there were only two BIPs,” the report said. “Student data and individual student records also indicate frequent use of restraint and seclusion without adequate evaluation and response.”

The report illustrated several instances where students required behavioral help, but there was “little to no individualization.” It also illustrated when student behavioral needs were ignored and played out in the child’s academics later.

“Student A was placed at the Hartford Primary-Middle School program in Grade 3, at age 10, with a BIP created at his previous public school. Yet a program review later that year indicated he was performing below grade level due to a lack of access to education based on extended timeouts, raising questions about the degree to which his BIP was reflective of his current needs,” the report said. “In additional, Student A had multiple absences, slept for the whole day on multiple days waking only to eat lunch, and had significant academic delays. 
 Complex academic/behavioral/disengagement issues persisted from enrollment at High Road for 7 years without his needs being properly addressed.”

Other examples included a student who had 70 timeouts and seven restraints in her first year at High Road and a student with 69 restraints over a 15-month period and no BIP in his record. 

Disengaged students, unclear path forward

Almost 40% of students enrolled at High Road schools had 18 or more absences from school. Over 25% missed over 25 days of instruction, and 10% of all students missed over 50 days, according to the report.

But for students in the classroom, there were several instances where investigators “saw multiple students who were sleeping for prolonged periods during class and students who were completely disengaged from classroom activities.”

“Investigators consistently saw students who were left entirely to themselves during a 30-minute or even 45-minute class period, alone in a cubicle or at a computer, without any or only the briefest of interactions with a teacher or an aide,” the report said.

“During one observation, investigators observed a student sitting in a cubicle starting at the wall. The teacher approached him and spoke to him once during a 45-minute observation. He did not respond and no one else attempted to engage him during class,” the report added. “During an observation at the Fairfield High Road School, several students were observed sleeping, with investigators told that one of the students sleeps all the way up until the last period of the day to participate in science class.”

There were also several issues with progress monitoring and assessments, and inappropriate academic goals, the report said.

“Investigators were told [at the Windham County campus] that students’ progress is monitored daily, but the covering administrator (who was not certified as an administrator) told OCA that ‘students don’t have academic goals; they are here because of behavior,’” the report said.

Beyond academic trouble, the report said, the school did not provide transitional services for older students.

“For older students whose records were reviewed, access to special education until age 22 was terminated without clear transition plans or individualized programs that would provide options for post-secondary education or realistic development of vocational options and experiences, with appropriate social and mental health supports that could lead to successful transitions to adult life.”

Leadership failure and policy recommendations

OCA and DRCT criticized both the state Department of Education and local districts’ efforts to protect the students with disabilities enrolled in High Road schools.

The report said one district’s director of public services “had positive things to say about High Road schools and expressed no concerns” with High Road and that “other programs are worse.” He said there were no red flags around service hours.

However, investigators said that district had 13 students enrolled in High Road programs, and five students missed a combined 306 days of instruction without a BIP in place. 

“Although certain districts indicated they conducted site visits and records review following the letter, the incongruity between the districts’ stated satisfaction with the provision of services and OCA/DRCT investigative findings regarding staffing irregularities, lack of background checking, inadequate records, lack of related service delivery and individualized behavioral intervention plans, and chronic absenteeism is difficult to reconcile,” the report said.

The investigation found that many districts across the state did not conduct site visits and did not ask substantial questions about services or staffing.

“In response to questions about whether the districts conducted any observations of its students enrolled at the schools, only 3/18 districts responded affirmatively,” the report said. “Most districts were unable to provide the ‘names, positions, qualifications and/or any certification of all personnel providing instruction, including special education and related services, to the students while attending High Road.’ One district maintained that CSDE is responsible for ensuring that High Road schools have qualified staff employed.”

At a state level, the report said, the Department of Education had concerns about background checking and inadequate student records, but there were no findings of follow-ups or corrective action.

The report said the state Department of Education did not properly monitor and ensure compliance with federal and state law.

The final pages of the report recommended that state law be amended to “require strengthened CSDE oversight of state-approved private special education programs” and mandate transparency from the education department’s monitoring and enforcement of federal law.

This story was originally published on CT Mirror.

“It’s not fair, I have gym Tuesday at the end of the day, and I can’t play gym,” Tiheem said.

The DOE had arranged for the car service after Tiheem’s school bus stopped showing up in early November. As a special education student, he is entitled to “service by a yellow school bus” under his Individualized Education Program — a written plan that states what services and accommodations the school district is legally required to provide.

When the bus first stopped coming, Tiheem missed a week-and-a-half of school because he had no transportation from his Brooklyn home to the District 75 school he attended in Queens. District 75 schools educate some 25,000 NYC public school students with moderate to profound disabilities and are scattered across the city, meaning many special education students have long commutes. Their IEPs are supposed to ensure they have busing.

But IEPs are often not enough to deliver on that essential service in the nation’s largest school district, which has . In an effort to finally force change, Parents to Improve School Transportation announced their campaign to create a at a press conference Feb. 4, . The event, which had to go remote because of bad weather, was attended by roughly 70 people via Zoom, according to group founder Sara Catalinotto.

“Access to education is a civil and human right, for children of all abilities, all housing [status],” Catalinotto said. “Transit equity, including safe, on-time, fully staffed school bus routes is crucial to their access. 
 Rosa Parks taught us not to give in just because the system has been so abusive for so long.”

The parent organization is in the initial stages of getting a referendum onto the November ballot in New York City to approve the school bus bill of rights, a process that will require collecting thousands of voter signatures on a petition.

Brooklyn state Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon and Nick Smith, the city’s first deputy public advocate, both spoke at the press conference and said they would support the referendum campaign. Parents to Improve School Transportation plans to march across the Brooklyn Bridge March 19 to raise further awareness of their effort.

Catalinotto said her goals include increasing measures to prevent route problems, like limiting the number of schools and stops on each route. She also hopes to see steps taken to retain a dedicated workforce. She wants increased workforce training and Covid protections. She is pushing for accessible communication with the DOE’s Office of Pupil Transportation in all languages. Additionally, Catalinotto hopes to create a panel to oversee policy decisions regarding school transportation. 

In an email statement shortly after the press conference, DOE Press Secretary Jenna Lyle did not respond to questions about the bill of rights’ demands, but said insufficient busing is not acceptable. 

“Every day we provide approximately 150,000 students with quality transportation to and from school, and we are constantly working to improve service,” Lyle wrote. “We work closely with families, bus companies and schools to ensure a safe and efficient experience for all students and staff – anything less is unacceptable.”

Since the beginning of the school year, parents across New York City have been drawing attention to late, absent or understaffed buses, chronic barriers to their children’s education which grew worse under the pandemic and the . While some parents who spoke to ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ said the issues they faced in the fall were resolved by December, they said they are still coping with the academic, economic and mental health repercussions. 

“I had to personally put my life on hold,” said Lynette Epps, who had to accompany her son Tiheem in the car service to and from school until he was assigned to a new school in January. “I had to turn down two jobs because of this.”

Others are still missing school due to problematic bus routes. The situation overwhelmingly impacts special education students, who have already suffered significant learning loss during COVID. 

Rima Izquierdo — a parent leader and the Bronx representative for the District 75 Leadership Team — said she advocates on behalf of families at her child’s campus. She said one currently has a bus that regularly picks up their child at 9 a.m., 40 minutes after school starts. Izquierdo said her 15-year-old son, whose IEP requires a paraprofessional accompany him on the bus, has also missed a lot of class time.

“I’m sure everyone hears my child in the background,” Izquierdo said during the virtual press conference. “Because of the para shortage, my bus para cannot take a day off or have an emergency without my son not losing the day of school because there is nobody to replace her.”

Izquierdo said the Office of Pupil Transportation said her child would be assigned a new bus route Feb. 14.

In a press release issued after the Feb. 4 event, the DOE said they resolve route issues quickly. 

“A vast majority of bus routes run smoothly throughout the city each day. Any one-off issues are escalated and efficiently addressed,” the department said in a statement.

Many NYC school families would disagree. Zariah Jimenez — a 19-year-old high school student at a Queens District 75 school — missed 25 days of school earlier this year because of late buses that violated her IEP’s limited travel time, according to her mother, Cheryl Ocampo. The issue took months to resolve.

Ocampo says Jimenez has trouble waiting for long periods of time and that waiting for the bus triggered her anxiety to the degree it became “a safety concern.” Ocampo had to leave work early to pick up her daughter herself. On days that she couldn’t afford to miss that time away from her job, Ocampo had to keep Jimenez at home.

“This school year’s school bus complications have profoundly impacted my daughter’s overall mental and physical health as well as her education and my employment,” Ocampo said, explaining that Jimenez developed anxiety about the bus, which led to sleeping issues. Ocampo said her daughter’s bus route was resolved in mid-December, but “my daughter is still trying to get back to some kind of normalcy.”

From the start of the school year until Dec. 3, Kelly Muñoz didn’t have a bus that met the limited-travel requirement in her sixth-grader’s IEP. Every morning, Muñoz had to do a two-hour round trip to get her child to and from their District 75 school in the South Bronx to their home in the Northwest Bronx. She said she counted driving 759 extra miles during that time.

“Mentally, I was drained and tired. There were days I was so stressed out from navigating traffic, missing meetings, playing catch up and parenting that I would want to just cry. I was having tons of headaches and even had an eye twitch in my left eye,” Muñoz said. “Taking on the responsibility of the DOE’s [Office of Pupil Transportation] was something no parent should have to do.”