Less than a month into the school year, Dawn Akerley has developed a very particular morning routine.
She dashes outside at around 7 a.m., when her son’s school bus is supposed to arrive, to see whether it is waiting at the curb. Usually, it isn’t. She leaves her son, Jace, who is 6 years old and autistic, unattended inside their first-floor apartment in Queens while she repeats this process every 20 minutes until the bus arrives, some days as late as 8:30 a.m.
The bus route originates in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and stretches about 20 miles east to Far Rockaway, Queens, before Jace is picked up in Richmond Hill, a neighborhood 10 miles to the north. The driver bypasses his school and stops at two others before dropping Jace off. Most days, Ms. Akerley said, he does not get to school until 10 a.m. — two hours late.
“It’s so detrimental to his entire day,” she said, adding that Jace had failed his first math test of the year because he was consistently missing class.
Ms. Akerley is just one of many New York City parents whose children use school buses and are not being picked up on time. A broad swath of those parents have children with disabilities or learning differences that require the city to provide a special education plan, which not only guarantees their right to transportation, but also stipulates that they cannot spend more than 90 minutes getting to school.
Students from kindergarten through sixth grade who live over a mile from school are also eligible for bus transportation.
But the bus system is in chaos, parents say. The city has about 17,500 bus drivers, but a shortage of about 300 drivers has led to delays and lengthened routes, and some students have to endure commutes of up to two hours each way. In the 2023-24 school year, 80,000 delays were reported, according to Glenn Risbrook, who runs student transportation for the New York City’s public school system. Parents insist that the situation this year is already markedly worse.
The root of the crisis lies in a 45-year-old contract between the Department of Education and some of the school bus companies it employs, Mr. Risbrook said at a City Council hearing on Monday that focused on upgrades and improvements to the school bus system.
A new deal would provide an opportunity for more companies to competitively bid for contracts, which would improve the quality of the bus system and lead to more hiring, he said.
But the city interpreted a 2011 state Court of Appeals decision to mean that it cannot modify the contract without getting rid of the employee protections negotiated with the bus drivers’ union, Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union. Those provisions guarantee drivers jobs if their bus companies go out of business, according to Mr. Risbrook.
The only answer, Mr. Risbrook said, is for lawmakers in Albany to amend state law to guarantee these protections even if the contract is modified and allow a new agreement to move forward.
A representative for Local 1181 did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Risbrook described the school bus system as “massively complex.” He said he wanted to make changes, such as expanding air conditioning and adapting to an electric fleet, as required by a newly passed state law.
“Unfortunately, a 45-year-old contract makes adapting to these changes and other changes very difficult,” Mr. Risbrook said.
In 2013, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg interpreted the court decision to mean that the city could put out a call for contract bids that did not include the employee protections. In response, school bus drivers went on strike. That strike lasted for a month and caused attendance for special education programs to plummet.
Since then, the city has repeatedly extended the contract to preserve the employee protection provisions, and Mr. Risbrook said the department plans to extend it again this year.
Both houses of the State Legislature passed a bill in 2019 that would have enshrined the protections into law, but the measure was vetoed in 2020 by then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who cited fiscal concerns.
State Senator John C. Liu, who represents much of northeast Queens, was a sponsor of that bill and said the issue had remained a priority, but the effort had faced significant headwinds, particularly from the governor’s office. Mr. Liu said that Gov. Kathy Hochul shared her predecessor’s financial concerns over the measure.
“We’re not talking about transporting luggage here,” Mr. Liu said. “We’re talking about delivering the most important parcels in the city.”
Asked to comment on the issue, Avi Small, a spokesman for Governor Hochul, said only that the governor “reviews all legislation that passes both houses of the Legislature.”
Adding to the transportation roadblocks the city’s public school students are facing, the new student OMNY card program that was designed to expand access to public transportation, mainly for middle and high school students, has hit logistical snags.
According to Councilwoman Rita Joseph, who chairs the City Council’s Education Committee, certain public schools in the city haven’t received enough cards for all their students. That, coupled with the school bus issue, has snarled school commutes citywide.
“This is a $2 billion industry,” Ms. Joseph said. “We’ve got to get it right for our kids.”
For now, Jace is likely to continue to face long waits for his bus. Recently, his mother said, he has begun telling her that he hates school.
“You don’t hate school,” she told him. “You hate the bus.”
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