CPS boards of ed come and go. Why can't we get our special needs students to school?

It was a short summer break for CPS students this year because they decided to make the school year start before Labor Day.

In the district where I taught we always started before Labor Day and I couldn’t begin to count the years when starting early meant trying to teach in classrooms without AC on brutally hot days.

I wasn’t surprised by 90 degree days in Chicago in August, but apparently my school board and administrators were oblivious to this yearly occurrence.

Now CPS has followed suit starting before Labor Day but claiming every Chicago classroom has AC.

My network of CPS teachers is telling me that this isn’t true in many classrooms in many buildings.

Chicago has already seen one heat wave since school started. We’re about to see another, although schools will be out for the Labor Day weekend, so next Tuesday may be the only school day when it will be toasty AND muggy.

We have a new school board, hand picked by the new mayor.

Mayoral control of the schools remains until a law requiring that Chicago elect its school board members rolls in over the next couple of years.

For some reason board members, no matter who picks them, have a hard time getting students with special needs to school no matter when school starts.

I mean, this board was hand picked by a mayor who was a teacher himself and an employee of the Chicago Teachers Union.

In October of 2021 the Sun-Times reported:

In all, about 3,800 of the more than 16,000 children who typically ride buses are still without service. A little over 2,300 of them are in special education. Kimberly Jones, CPS’ transportation chief, told the Board of Education at its monthly meeting Wednesday that 97% of those children who still don’t have bus routes have been getting to school on their own.

This week, Chalkbeat is reporting:

A total of 733 students with disabilities, who are legally entitled to transportation under federal law, were waiting for bus service as of Monday, according to a spokesperson for Chicago Public Schools. Additionally, 10 students living in temporary housing, who are also legally entitled to transportation, had yet to be assigned to routes. 

Lacking half of the drivers it needs, the district decided this year to limit bus transportation to students with disabilities and those experiencing homelessness. These students can alternatively choose to receive stipends of up to $500 a month to cover transportation costs, which families of close to 3,270 children have done, the district said. The district is continuing to receive new requests for transportation, a spokesperson said.

Five hundred bucks a month?

If the choice is between no bus and five hundred bucks I get why parents would pick the stipend.

But what are working parents of kids with special needs supposed to do? Call an Uber?

Block Club:

Laurie Viets started calling Chicago Public Schools three weeks ago to make sure her son had a bus ride for the first day of school Monday.

After extended waits on hold, Viets was given the name of the bus company serving her son’s school, she said. She began calling the company Thursday, but she “couldn’t get any real human on the line,” she said. When no bus came Monday, Viets waited 30 minutes to speak with someone at CPS — and was told the district didn’t have a report of her family requesting a ride for her son, she said. 

Finally, officials told Viets the soonest her son could secure a spot on a bus would be Sept. 7, she said. Viets’ son has autism, cannot get to school independently and has transportation included in his individualized education program.

“I feel screwed because I thought I did my due diligence, sitting on hold, calling back the school, just to hear today he has not been routed at all and isn’t in the system,” Viets said. “Now we’re scrambling trying to figure out who I could ask to drive him.”

It’s really intolerable.