Missing Mr. Ralph

While my two oldest boys, Chip and Corey, were in high school, they had the same bus and same bus driver for all four years. The bus was on time 99% of the time, both for the pickup and dropoff in the afternoon.

For my two youngest children, Ashley and Ronnie, they are lucky if they have only four different bus drivers and busses each school year. There is no consistency from year to year, often from month to month, and that makes it really difficult for both the drivers and aides who need to know my children and the effect of their disabilities, as well as for my children, both of whom do best with a consistent routine. And having the bus arrive on time??? Almost never.

But I finally got lucky with Ashley’s transportation last November. After complaining about the greatly inconsistent schedules of her assigned bus, schedule problems which kept me from ever getting to work on time, Ashley was assigned a new bus and lo and behold, it was a bus driver that she knew!

Mr. Ralph was Ashley’s driver last year for some of the year. He understands her, and often comes up with great ideas on how to make the ride to school less stressful for her. He is always on time which means I make it to work on time. So everything was going great…..until Tuesday of this week.

Twenty five minutes after the allotted pickup time, Ashley’s bus finally shows up with a different driver. As Ashley starts back to her seat, I begin asking the driver to at least radio his dispatcher if he is going to be that late in the future and the dispatcher can call me. Tuesday morning we waiting outside in the sub-freezing temperatures for 30 minutes. The driver immediately went into defensive mode saying he was just a substitute driver. I asked again for a call to the dispatcher in the future, and he just rolled his eyes and turned away.

Wednesday morning the bus was only 10 minutes late, and yet another new driver was in charge. At least she said that she had radioed dispatch, but dispatch never called me. The driver seemed nice enough, but I asked when Mr. Ralph would be back. She said he wasn’t coming back because he had been transferred to another bus.

Deep and heavy sigh…..

Of course, when things are working well, let’s just mix them up again. That seems to be my school district’s philosophy. I completely understand that running transportation for a school district as large as mine is not an easy job. But it is a job that I assume the folks in the department are trained to do. Does it really have to be as difficult as it seems to be?

And why is it always the special education students who have to put up with the most changes? Special education students who do best when life is predictable and routine? Why can’t the bus transportation for my children receiving special education students be as good as it is for regular education students? Maybe, School District, you should try switching the managers of those two departments and see if it makes a difference….

The Don't-Care-Van

And I thought school transportation was bad.....

This past Saturday I hosted a get-together of professionals who are interested in advocating for people with disabilities, college graduate students, mentor families, and self-advocates. One of the self-advocates was a woman, Barbara, who appeared to be around 30 years old. She used a hi-tech power wheelchair and a communication board. She typed out what she wanted to say by touching a straw held in her mouth to the keyboard of the communication device. She moved her chair independently though slowly since she had only the slightest movement in one of her hands. She was funny and beautiful and had a wicked sense of humor.

She traveled to my house using a van service in our area called Care-Van. It is operated by our local bus transportation company, and its only purpose is to transport people with disabilities.

Over the years I have heard many nightmare stories about the unreliable service provided by Care-Van, and I had the chance to experience that first hand with Barbara. First, they had a tough time, so they said, finding my house to drop Barbara off. My house is probably one of the easiest houses to find in my city - truly. It is one turn off a main road, and it is easy to figure out which house in the neighborhood is mine because of the prominent wheelchair ramp. But Care-Van claimed they had a tough time finding it. I wonder if they have heard of GPS devices...

Care-Van finally did find my house, and Barbara joined in the fun. When she was dropped off, Barbara had already made arrangements to be picked up three hours later. Sounds simple, right? Apparently not.

Care-Van showed up - same driver - same wheelchair van. Barbara had already started down our ramp heading to the van when the driver appeared to tell her that he couldn't take her because his van was already full. He said he would be back in about an hour....

So Barbara had to work very hard to turn her chair around, get back in the house, and wait another hour. I personally enjoyed the extra time with Barbara, but I could tell she was anxious to get home. She explained that she had booked these travel arrangements well in advance, but that she wasn't surprised because this always happened. She couldn't begin to count the number of times she had been late for work because of Care-Van. And I have heard that from many others.

So, you've got someone, many someones, with disabilities who have a tough time finding employment in the first place, and then because a transportation company can't seem to understand scheduling and travel, the person is at risk of losing their job. And even worse than that to me is that someone like Barbara, who works very hard to have control over things in her life, things which are extremely difficult at best, and she is at the mercy of a transportation provider.

I'll say the same thing I've said about school transportation services - I know it must be a complicated task to schedule the transportation, BUT THIS IS THEIR JOB. It's what they are in business to do. And right now, they are doing a really crappy job....