INDUSTRY CONNECTIONS CONDITIONED COLLABORATION
CHALLENGES RELATED TO PROVIDING A/C IN SPECIAL NEEDS SCHOOL BUSES CAN BE SOLVED BEFORE COMPLAINTS TURN INTO SOMETHING WORSE WRITTEN BY SYLVIA ARROYO
I
n most cases, not having air conditioning in a school bus for a regular education student is not
a matter of life or, possibly, death. But for certain students with special needs, riding in a climate-controlled vehicle is not just a thing of comfort. It can be just as important for their well-being as their therapy or medication treatment. Air conditioning on special
needs school buses has been a hot topic particularly since the economic downturn. Tight or underfunded school district budgets have forced administra- tors to make difficult decisions. Some districts have cut back on certain necessary purchases, such as new school buses. Even if they do consider new buses, they don’t want them with any additional features such as air conditioning that increase costs. For example, in December the Baldwin County school board in Alabama backed off on the idea of purchasing air-con- ditioned buses. Since school officials have repeatedly said the district has been under- funded, and is experiencing a lot of growth in terms of new students, the idea of spending extra money for A/C apparently struck a nerve with constituents. According to a news report,
the new air-conditioned buses would have cost $8,000 to $10,000 extra per bus, including maintenance and fuel costs, said the school system’s chief financial officer. Te article stated a “no frills” bus would cost $72, 415. Another vital element to
this challenge is the disconnect between the Individualized Educational Program (IEP) planning team and an outside
transportation provider, or miscommunication among stakeholders at an IEP meeting considering a student’s needs while being transported. “I can’t imagine planning a
speech program without the speech therapist being [at the IEP meeting], but many times [the stakeholders] will write a transportation plan without a transportation rep being there,” said Cheryl Wolf, a special needs transportation consul- tant and former transportation supervisor for Lafayette School Corporation in Indiana. She also is a tenured faculty pre- senter for the TSD Conference that starts later this month. She stressed the importance of sharing knowledge about the student at these meetings. “Transportation needs to
know why the special-ed team is doing what they are doing, and vice versa,” she noted.
THINKING CREATIVELY TO SOLVE ISSUES
Linda Bluth, special ini-
tiatives education program specialist with the Maryland State Department of Edu- cation’s Division of Special Education/Early Intervention Services, said guidelines on when to consider the need for air conditioning when providing special needs transportation and how they are to be addressed at the IEP meeting is essential. If a student’s condition dictates that an air-conditioned bus ride is necessary for a medical reason, then the school district must provide the equipment. “It’s a question of training the
IEP team members,” said Bluth, who also is a tenured faculty member of the Transporting
22 School Transportation News February 2014
Students with Disabilities and Preschoolers National Con- ference to be held Feb. 28 to March 5 in Nashville, Tenn. In her experience hearing about various cases involving this issue, she said one big piece missing from the puzzle during IEP meetings was the failure to ask if A/C is needed during the extended school year, which applies to many students with special needs. During a recent case at a
Midwestern school district where Wolf was called in to consult, student transporters had the challenge of providing transportation with air condi- tioning to a student with a very rare condition. Tough the IEP was fine in addressing the stu- dent’s need, transportation had to find a bus with A/C shortly before the school year began. Tis particular case could
have gone wrong quickly, but Wolf said the IEP team worked diligently to think outside of the box and come up with a plan that worked. “[Tis case] showed the
importance of transportation being involved in those IEP case conferences when there are extreme issues. It was one
of those issues that turned out very well because everybody cooperated,” she said.
A/C A NO-BRAINER AT SCHOOL DISTRICT
For the past year, the Office
of the State Superintendent of Education has been running the special-education transpor- tation program for the District of Columbia Public Schools after the federal government relinquished control. On Dec. 19, 2012, a 17-year-old case against DCPS was dismissed stemming from a class-action suit tied to unreliable school bus service that violated the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Since then, Ryan Solchen-
berger, who became director of the OSSE Division of Trans- portation in July 2011, has been in charge of modernizing the special needs bus fleet, which now has GPS to help maintain on-time arrivals of school buses and air conditioning. Every school bus the district purchases already comes with A/C. Currently, DCPS has about 7,000 students with an IEP; about 3,200 receive student transportation services per
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