jury could find that the facts added up to a conclusion that the school district had been deliberately indifferent to Gilberto and denied the district’s motion for summary judgment. Richmond County School District (Ga., May 2009) is a lesson
about the value of travel training. A 13-year-old diagnosed with multiple disabilities, including autism and severe intellectual dis- ability, had difficulty with a number of transitions in his home and school experience. He resisted getting on the school bus in the morning, and, for a time, his mother drove him to school. She stopped taking him after a number of months of district inaction despite her requests for assistance, and he did not attend school. Finally, the district developed a comprehensive plan to transi- tion him gradually to the bus. Te mother rejected the plan and continued to keep him home from school until the beginning of the next school year. When implemented, the plan was success- ful and the boy attended school, making progress towards his IEP goals. Te mother sought compensatory education for the period of non-attendance. Te state department of education found in her favor, but only to compensate for the period of time prior to the district’s offer of an appropriate plan. Henderson County Public Schools (N.C., April 2009) concerns
the parameters for parental reimbursement when the district is otherwise obligated to transport a child with a disability. Parents of students with disabilities told the Office for Civil Rights that they’d felt coerced into accepting arrangements, in which they would drive their students to and from school in exchange for reimbursement for one round trip a day, although their travel amounted to two round trips daily. OCR accepted the district’s commitment to resolve, in which it agreed to review all such transportation arrangements and offer appropriate transportation and/or full reimbursement. In Los Angeles Unified School District (Calif., September 2009),
the mother of a 10-year-old with a very rare syndrome accompa- nied by multiple medical problems worried about the distance and length of ride to his school. Te district had changed the location of his program after learning that he did not live within the geographi- cal area served by the first school. Continuing the boy at the first school would have required maintaining specialized transportation services that would not be necessary if the student attended the second school. Te mother’s real concern, at the hearing, appeared to be the additional time it would take her to travel to the new school in the event of an emergency. Te state educational agency found that she did not carry her burden of proof, and that the new school represented an appropriate placement for the student. Even though the student’s unique needs were varied and complicated, they did not have special transportation implications.
DRIVER/MONITOR ACTION AND INACTION Wilson v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson
County (Tenn., January 2009, unreported) is a tale of inaction by a driver in the face of likely student injury. Te driver saw two bullies leave their bus seats and approach Wilson, another student. Te driver had reason to be aware that the boys verbally and physi- cally bullied Wilson for several minutes before returning to their seats. Tey began to approach the boy again, but when a friend of the victim’s tried to block them, one of the bullies kicked the
40 School Transportation News Magazine February 2010
friend and then beat Wilson. Te experienced driver, who knew that the driver handbook specified action by the driver when stu- dents left their seats, said and did nothing. He testified that it was common for students to leave their seats, that they didn’t obey when he did say something, and that while he saw the bullying, he didn’t think “it was that big of a problem.” Te court held that the driver should have foreseen the harm to Wilson and taken action to prevent it, and it affirmed the award of damages. Eric M. v. Cajon Valley Union School District (Calif., May 2009)
involved a 6-year-old who ran off the bus when he thought he saw his father’s car from the school bus window. He was mistaken and walked towards the bus stop nearest his home. He was hit by a car while crossing a busy street. Noting that the transportation process begins with loading students, the appellate court overturned the lower court’s grant of summary judgment to the district, insisting there were factual issues to be determined at trial. Among those issues were the questions of the driver’s obligations to supervise the student and whether the district should have taken additional precautions to keep Eric from harm’s way. Te driver had testified that she was afraid to reach out and grab him. A jury will decide if the driver had valid concerns about getting into trouble if she had tried to stop him more aggressively from leaving the bus. In Doe v. Talabi (Conn., August 2009), a monitor stood by
while a driver drove off route, to his own home, took a female high school student with special needs into the home, and sexu- ally assaulted her. Te civil lawsuit brought by the student against Laidlaw (the driver’s employer at the time) was dismissed last year because the driver “was engaging in criminal conduct that had no connection to the defendant’s business of providing transporta- tion to special education students.” Te court decided that the case against LogistiCare Solutions, LLC, the monitor’s employer could proceed, however, to determine the extent of a duty held by the company to the student, and whether or not LogistiCare and its monitor breached that duty. Te court noted that the moni- tor was fully aware that the driver had driven the bus off its usual route, and that, before the driver removed the student from the bus, he told the monitor that he wanted to show her a room in the house. Moreover, clear language in the monitor’s own job descrip- tion should have indicated the “inappropriateness of the situation” developing in his presence. Te monitor neither questioned the student nor the driver, nor did he attempt to convince the student to stay on the bus. Among the allegations against LogistiCare are failure to train (because the monitor had one training session four years previously — contrary to the provisions of the contract), and reckless disregard for the student’s safety through its failure to pro- vide adequate communication equipment. n
Peggy Burns is an attorney, consultant and owner of Education Compliance Group, Inc. (
www.educationcompliancegroup.com.) She is the editor of Legal Routes, and developer of four video training pro- grams for school bus drivers, “Te Road to Compliance for Special Needs Drivers,” “Putting the Brakes on Harassment,” “Steering Clear of Liability,” and “Confidential Records” and co-author of School Bus Stops: A Safety Guide for Transporters. Peggy can be reached at (888) 604-6141, and by e-mail to
ecginc@qwestoffice.net.
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