Demand the Mayor and Department of Education Meet Their Responsibilityto Transport our NYC Students to School

Almost 150,000 NYC public school students will be affected if Mayor Adams cannot prevent a school bus strike at the start of this school year. This student population includes students in temporary housing, students with disabilities, students in foster care, students attending charter schools, students attending non-public/private schools, students attending religious schools and the majority of our District 75 students.  

The Department of Education’s response so far is to provide daily Metrocards(not weekly or monthly),a lengthy reimbursement process for costs accrued by the families, and a problematic RideShare option most school based transportation personnel are not trained on. The last school bus strike occurred in 2013 after Mayor Bloomberg removed the Employment Protection Provisions(EPP) from the contract bids when awarding billion dollar contracts to greedy bus owners. That strike lasted 5 weeks leaving 100,000 students stranded at home losing precious instructional time and mandated services and resulted in parents scrambling to find solutions.  

The DOE has not learned from the previous strike. No contingency plan was developed. School announcements emailed out to families on August 25, 2023 had no mention of the impending school bus strike. The DOE has done an abysmal job preparing for what will be a chaotic start of the school year.

We hold the Mayor and the Department of Education responsible for the duties the bus vendors are contractually obligated to fulfill. Transportation is a related service under IDEA and an educational service per NYSED law; the transportation of students in temporary housing is protected under McKinney-Vento. If the companies default on their contract stipulations and fail to provide uninterrupted service, the contracts with that vendor should be nullified.

We ask you to please sign this petition to urge the Department of Education to come up with a responsive action plan to address this school bus crisis including the following:

1.Prevent a strike! Apply the financial, legal and political leverage of City Hall, NYC Public Schools and the Office of Labor Relations to convince school bus vendors to achieve labor peace by negotiating a living wage structure for new and senior employees.

2. In case of a strike, provide a one time allocation to every school based on the percentage of students enrolled that require pupil transportation to use for families who cannot afford to pay for transportation. That should be increased if these students are also identified as students in temporary housing.

3.Streamline the reimbursement process for families to submit their reimbursement forms weekly, instead of daily.

4.Provide immediate training to all school based transportation liaisons on account codes for rideshares and how to assist families on booking the service

5..Provide weekly Metrocards for both students and parents,instead of a daily one which requires the parents to wait to see busy school staff members daily for a new card. .

6.Work with the MTA to increase frequency of bus services on lines that transport large populations of students to local High Schools and provide all high school students with unlimited MetroCards.

Make no mistake, NYC families support our bus drivers, attendants, and mechanics in their efforts for a fair union contract that provides bus workers a livable starting wage and a fast path to maximum salary. This will be a first step to alleviating the staff shortage which results in routes longer than the rest of the state allows. We recognize many of our bus staff are parents who have children in our school system as well. They are only asking for a contract that reflects and recognizes the care and dedication needed to transport our children safely back and forth to school.

We ask our signees to please come out in support of these workers at the Labor Union Parade September 9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pooTXw1De3E

We also suggest our signees register for our Citywide Virtual Town Hall on Pupil Transportation on Friday September 1 at noon. Please click here to register in advance:

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://nycdoe.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwvduCgqjwsGNBwbq83KolzaER2jQ9AbubR

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

For more information, go to https://www.pistnyc.org/resources/strike