SPECIAL REPORT
DESIGNED FOR SAFETY. BUILT FOR COMFORT.
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tle VII), Medicaid School-Based Services, IDEA Travel Training (34 CFR §300.39) / VR / WIOA Youth, state categorical funding, state funding formula inclusion, and state reimbursement of district costs. Alexandra Robinson, president of A. Robinson
Consulting and a former NAPT president, noted the most obvious issue is that HHS focuses on a medi- cal perspective. “When we are educating and transporting
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students with disabilities, we want to focus on an educational perspective,” said the TSD Confer- ence Tenured Faculty member. “We’ve been lucky enough to have a team of people at the [ED], in the office of special education programs, whose expertise is education, instructional interventions, and assisting states and local entities with techni- cal assistance. “This will either not exist in that same way or be
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extremely lacking. For large urban school districts and in states where there is strong accountability and oversight, things may be okay. But in those places where we already have issues with equitabil- ity and numerous cases of IEP and IDEA violations, there will be no incentive for any ongoing account- ability, especially if the Office of Civil Rights does not exist as it does now.” Robinson noted McKinney-Vento is now cov-
ered under the Every Student Succeeds Act. “In those states and districts where there is
learn more Scan to
a strong liaison dealing with students who are homeless or temporarily housed, it should be business as usual,” she said, adding the unfunded mandate and reduced federal oversight may mean students are missing necessary, instructional minutes and classroom time because of lack of ownership, responsibility and a sense of urgency at the local levels. “It’s easy to let administrative noise stand in for a change in obligation when it isn’t one,” added Wright-Gallo. “Our responsibility, professionally, is to hold that line: To keep documentation, training and coordination tight enough that a shift in who processes a grant never becomes a gap in what a student actually receives. “It’s a reminder of why this work matters in the first place,” she continued. “The bus that shows up on time, the aide who knows a student’s behavior plan, the ride that gets a homeless student back to the only school that still feels like home, aren’t abstracts of policy. They’re the daily, unglamor- ous proof that the laws are doing what they were written to do.” ●
46 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2026 2026_10 - School Transportation - Half Page -
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