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Parents, union describe horrors of budget cuts

Published Feb 13, 2005 6:48 PM

An overflow, standing-room-only crowd met at the historic Freedom House in Boston on Feb. 3 over issues of school bus safety. They put the School Department and First Student Inc., the privately owned school bus company, on the hot seat. The largely African-American outpouring of over 150 parents, students, teachers, bus drivers and community activists had responded to a call for a School Bus Safety Summit put out by African Amer ican and Latino city councilors Chuck Turner, Charles Yancey and Felix Arroyo, as well as African-American State Senator Dianne Wilkerson and State Representative Gloria Fox.


In Boston, both drivers and parents
want monitors on school buses,
not GPS devices.

The communities of color in Boston have been struggling for decades for equal, quality education and desegregation. Over the last year, they have successfully pushed back an attempt by the mayor, the racist majority on the City Council and the Boston business community to turn back the clock and return to racist, segregated, unequal "neighborhood schools."

But for desegregation to be successful, the ride to and from school must be safe. The call for a School Bus Safety Summit came in response to an all-out attack on Boston School Bus Union USWA Local 8751 by the Boston City Council, which blamed drivers for safety problems and called for installation of Homeland Security-style "Global Positioning Sys tem" (GPS) devices on the school buses, rather than deal with the real safety issues.

These are: lack of monitors on the buses, not enough drivers or personnel devoted to safety, a bus fleet in ill repair and inadequately maintained, lack of rosters and necessary safety information, and poorly maintained and defective radios on the buses. The GPS would be a violation of the union's contract. The Greater Boston Labor Council has passed a resolution against it.

The campaign, which was taken up by many organizations and community groups, including the International Action Center and the Women's Fightback Net work, also demanded that Chuck Turner be restored to his seat as chair of the City Council's Education Committee. Even though 85 percent of the students in Bos ton schools are from communities of color, the president of the City Council replaced Turner last year with a white racist chair and vice chair of the committee. They have pursued an agenda of returning to separate, unequal "neighborhood schools."

At the Freedom House meeting, Turner announced that as a result of the campaign, City Council President Michael Fla herty had agreed to appoint him as vice-chair and to appoint councilors Yancey and Arroyo to the committee.

Grim stories of budget cuts

The summit opened with statements by Turner, Yancey and Gloria Fox welcoming representatives of the school bus drivers' union, community, and parents to "voice for themselves what actions need to be taken," and citing the City Council's failure year after year to pass Yancey's legislation for monitors on all the buses.


Elected officials and unionists at
Safety Summit

Steve Gillis, president of Local 8751, Boston School Bus Drivers, described system-wide problems with lateness and safety caused by the School Department's budget cuts. He also stated that while drivers are all showing up on time for work, cuts to the maintenance budget mean not enough buses are mechanically fit to go on the road. Preventive maintenance is not done on the buses.

He described how a wheelchair bus had caught on fire last year because of a missing piece. Because a monitor was on board, it was able to be evacuated. "Clicked" routes require buses to deliver to as many as four different schools within a short window of time, causing them to arrive late at some schools. He explained that, "The School Department spent just over $2 million for bus monitor safety this year, out of a more than $700-million budget. It is a small price to pay for 40,000 children who rely on school buses in order to get their family's right to choose where to go to school."

Oslyn Brumant, a steward and representative of the union's safety committee, explained that for everyone's safety the drivers shouldn't have to take their eyes off the road, and that the human contact of a monitor is necessary to ensure children's safety on every bus, especially during a medical emergency. She also cited broken radios, the lack of personnel on the other end of the radio to respond in case of emergency, and the lack of safety supervisors. There are only four safety supervisors for over 700 buses and four bus yards. She described an incident in which it took over half an hour to get assistance for a driver who had been beaten up.

But the most chilling and gripping testimony came from the parents. One parent told how his autistic child was missing for 1.5 hours. He couldn't get anyone from the school department to answer and treat him with respect, and there was no monitor on that bus.

A bus driver and parent described the condition of a student with a metal plate in her head who was scratching at and hitting it, with no monitor on the bus.

A mother of three children, including a 13-year-old special needs student, cited how her daughter had missed 38 days of school so far this school year because no bus came, although the child was certified as requiring door-to-door special needs ser vice. She described buses over-full, with three kids to a seat, and fights breaking out with no monitors. Kids jump over the seats, throw backpacks, and are getting hurt.

In answering them, School Department Transportation Chief Richard Jacobs implied the parents weren't telling the truth. And despite the pleas all night long, he said he didn't believe it was necessary to put a monitor on every bus.

Council members Turner and Yancey and State Representative Fox promised that this campaign would continue until the voices and concerns of the community were met.