The Washington Post: No-show buses, long waits: Will GPS finally help D.C.’s disabled students?
Johnathan Edwards of The Washington Post continues coverage on the issues surrounding the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, the agency required by federal law to transport DC students with disabilities to and from school.
OSSE has struggled for decades to reliably transport disabled students, and generations of parents have tried to force D.C. officials to improve the service by complaining, imploring lawmakers to apply pressure and filing federal lawsuits. Most children in D.C. get to school on a local bus or the Metro, but about 3,600 students rely on OSSE’s fleet of 700 school buses because they have physical or intellectual disabilities that prevent them from using public transportation or require them to attend faraway campuses that offer special services.
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Fed up with delays, six parents of disabled students and a national disability rights organization filed a class-action lawsuit last year alleging that the city and OSSE fail on a daily basis to transport students with disabilities to and from school on time, as required by federal law.
The District Fails to Provide Transportation for Students with Disabilities
Parents and guardians of children with disabilities living in the District of Columbia, along with The Arc of the United States, filed a class action lawsuit on March 7, 2024 against DC’s Office of the State Superintendent for Education for failing to provide safe, reliable and effective transportation to and from schools for children with disabilities, thereby denying students equal access to their education and unnecessarily segregating them from their peers.