CHARLOTTE — Students with special needs are being sent to and from school using third-party transportation services.
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Channel 9 education reporter Jonathan Lowe spoke with a mother who said this setup won’t work for her son.
Parent April Brown said transportation was never an issue for her child’s first two years with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
But now he is a third grader and they’re having a different experience.
CMS has offered to outsource his rides to and from school.
Though federal law requires it, CMS is still working to provide transportation for Brown’s 7-year-old son Kameron.
“I’m thinking, ‘I’m just going to bring him for a couple of days,’ but now a couple of days has turned into a month,” Brown said. “I’m leaving work to come get him from school.”
Kameron has autism so it’s a deeper issue for the mother.
“Being that he is non-verbal, he has to take extra things like speech and occupational therapy,” she told Lowe.
Kameron participates in an Individualized Education Program like any student with special needs.
An IEP is required by federal law and is based on a specific disability.
It outlines a student’s educational goals and required specialist services. The program also calls for the school district to provide them with transportation to and from school.
Brown has concerns about how CMS is working to fulfill the latter.
“He said that they are having issues supplying transportation so they were going to start outsourcing, and he would send his information to a third-party company,” she said.
CMS confirmed in a written statement they are contracted with nearly a dozen third-party contractors, including cab companies, to transport students with special needs.
That’s the case right now for about 381 students.
“I have seen a van bringing the kids, multiple kids, and some of them are actually blind with walking sticks, and I just don’t understand how,” Brown said. “It’s only one person. How could they really accommodate having a van full of special needs children when they all have different triggers?”
Brown said it’s just not an arrangement that gives her piece of mind.
“If anything happens, he wouldn’t be able to tell me, because he’s non-verbal,” she said. “They didn’t really explain if the drivers go through background checks or anything.”
CMS said in that statement:
“Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Transportation reviewed the situation regarding the student’s transportation needs. Yellow bus transportation for the child would have resulted in a two-hour ride. In light of the lengthy travel time, transportation offered an alternative of third-party services to transport the student to and from school. We are continuing to work with the family to accommodate their needs with appropriate transportation for the student.”
CMS told Channel 9 last week that the district is short 50 bus drivers and 38 are on approved leave.
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