Good evening everyone. My name is Stephanie Bonija and I am your second vice president for citywide council. I will start off with our interpreters to make their announcements
and our Bangla line interpreter please start your announcement. All right. The following message will be for Bangla. for cho announcement complete. >> Thank you. Can I man the main line
interpreter start your announcement? The following is in Mandarin. Fore she mandering uh announcement completed. Thank you. >> Thank you. Can our Spanish line interpreter start your announcement?
Spanish. Okay. was on the on the diaspro says saysro uno ID Thank you. All interpretation announcement announce finish. >> Thank you. All interpretation
announcements have been complete. We may now begin. Thank you. Tonight, Miss Sarah from Miss Sarah from PIS parents
parents to improve school transportation will be joining us to be answering any concerns or questions that you all may have. We would like to change things up a little bit tonight and we would like to
we saw the increase of numbers for um registrations and we would like to know what are you your concerns at this time? What are you been dealing with throughout this school year? We have
noticed that a lot of a lot of parents have been dealing with switching up the matrix, switching up the drivers in January, but also past that past that month as well. So, we would like to know
your um your concerns that you've been dealing with at this time. Does anyone would like to raise your hand and would like to start? Okay. I see in the chat, Miss Shiovana, would you like to unmute?
>> Hi, can you hear me? >> Yes, we can. Hi. Hey. Um, so I wanted to join this meeting because we recently had an issue with our daughter's bus company where they every morning it was getting earlier and earlier for pickup and ultimately they texted me saying
we're going to come between 6:22 and 6:25 to pick up a fouryear-old >> whose school doesn't start till 8:00. And >> I would have to wake up my child at like 5:30 and it just was not fair. I had to get to the point where we now we have to
drop her to school because she gets to sleep at least till, you know, 8 6:30, 6:45. >> Is this issue still happening at this time? >> Well, I had to stop the bus because they told me the the latest the driver when I
called the bus company, the latest the driver the driver could come was 6:30, which is still too early for a fouryear-old. Yes. What um what borrow if you don't mind? >> Staten Island. >> So the school and the um home are both
in Staten Island, >> correct? >> And it's it's prek. >> It's it's prek. Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah, that seems like they're breaking their own rule because I'm going to pull up the um
the chart of how long it's supposed to be. Um, it's just, you know, because sometimes when it's that long, they're doing that on purpose. They have allowed themselves 2 hours for K through 12 when they go
out of burrow, unless you have um gone through all of the steps of getting the accommodation for um limited time travel. And I'm not saying that's right. We, you know, we've been yelling at them about this for 15 years. Um,
so but I'm going to pull that up so everybody can see it. So that, you know, are they, you know, breaking their own rule or is it within their rule that we have to continue to fight to get them to change?
Um, so I'll I'll pause there. Okay, we'll wait for you to put that up. Isn't it supposed to be 90 minutes? Sarah, >> I think that's what our CPS coordinator had said as well. >> I'm going to pull it up. It did. I know
that it increased from what it was 5 years ago. >> Okay. for the younger kids, including early intervention. But give me a minute cuz it's Yeah, I should have it memorized by now, but it it gets me so mad that I But anyway, I'm going to
share the screen in a second. My brain won't hold on to it. Oh, and she since that, you know, and the school has the school made complaints as well cuz at one time they
>> school to get guidance and the first thing they said was to follow up with the bus company. >> Okay. >> Um which I called the bus company. The guy was really nice about it, but at when he called the driver at the end of the day, all she could um do he said was
the latest was 6:30. I guess they don't have enough kids to split the route. Well, it's more like they don't have enough drivers because the kids supposed to get what their IEP says, you know.
Um, and OPT hasn't been like you, we can share you the complaint process with OPT itself. Um, yeah. Miss Sarah also put um the emails in the chat.
Um even though you're not using the bus right now, can you please add that into the complaint that that's the reason why you're not using the bus right now? Um and then I will we will send you back.
What what else? What other information? OPT will need from you like your route, your school. I don't want you to disclose any of that in the meeting. Um, we could do that in the email and we could follow up to see like what you're
saying about if is the a route issue, if is that they can't split the route or if it's a time issue. Also, do you have accommodations in your
IEP for limited time travel? >> Um, no. Uh, before she was at a different school and it was only like a 15-minute ride up the road. It's just half uh after winter break she got placed at a different school which
happens to be kind of on the other side of the island which is how we ended up in this situation. >> Okay. Look, um, you will need a letter from your doctor. >> Mhm. >> Asking for limited time travel.
>> Correct, Sarah? >> Yeah, there's a whole form now. Um, we have a um we have a link. I'm having a little trouble with the share, but I just put a a short
um link tinyurl.com/pistadvice. And when you get there, it has the link to the same information in Spanish. Um, and I'm going to put the one about the adding the accommodations. It's just that they keep changing certain places
where they have this on the website, if they even have it on the DOE website. So, um it's a process, but but we do find that a lot of it it's the parents of the
youngest kids who um get caught because you don't know that it's going to be so >> you know and Oh, there you go. That's it. Yeah. Right. So it should it should be 75 for
prek in burrow even though you just had it even though Staten Island is you know kind of big. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So the way we read this um you know finding the age level which they only
have two categories and that's the prek so 4 years old and down 3k early intervention if the school is in the same burrow as your home their maximum time is 75
minutes and that was increased as I say um in the beginning of the pandemic or at least that's when they told us and tried to say it was like that all along. But we have older um presentations,
you know, where is actually less than >> it used to be 60, but they bumped it to 75. And then if you're going out of the burrow, I mean, this is really long for these little babies. Um but that is what
uh you know unfortunately the people in charge have decided is normal and okay. And then when you get to kindergarten through 12, they you know under these regulations
uh can um be given a 90minute ride in Burrow and 115. But that since that's so close to 120, when we've seen uh Office of
People Transportation Executives testify at city council, they say 2 hours. They round it to two hours and they treat it like it's 2 hours. And you know, this is really unacceptable. Um, but they've gotten to the point of
using the driver shortage as an an excuse instead of, you know, hustling to try to get more recruitment. So, that's something that we're going to talk about when we talk about advocacy after people um, address these kind of
questions here tonight. Can I also ask you guys like um when does this the 75 minutes starts at the time of pickup, right? But um does it mean 8:00 when school starts like or because the guy at the bus company told me well the bus
drivers online at 7:45? >> Oh, online to drop. Oh h Yeah, that's a good question. We have found that like sometimes they try not to count um and this is not the drivers you know control
as you've seen um but the routers and then um how the company you know scrambles to uh cover the route. Um, we've seen that the they it's tricky to
get a a clear answer about, for instance, the part of the time that the the the bus is sitting waiting at a different school to to release and, you know, which is another problem when they combine more than one school on the
route. Um, so I'm not sure exactly what to tell you, but I know that you want your child, you know, in the classroom on time and not frazzled from rushing.
Um, and and that's, you know, that should be it shouldn't be a favor. It shouldn't be a a special treatment. It should be what's happening automatically to each and every bus rider. Um and this is unfortunate that this is what you
know what it looks like. Um so that's why we are organized. That's why this committee exists. That's why parents improve school transportation exists and other um you know groups
who are working to try to get them to revamp how this is done. Um, even the city controller did an audit of the office of pupil transportation and brought out a lot of this. But I'm just going to stop talking so that I can
go get the um accommodation resource and for the person who wanted to Oh, no, that was on that was on Facebook. Never mind. So, I'm going to that's the one I'm going to get and uh maybe a couple other links that might help people here.
I know there's other people waiting patiently with their hands up. Yes. Um we have Miss Lorina Pastigo has her hand up. >> Yes. Hi. Good evening. So, I'm having a similar situation. I have a 17year-old.
I live in Brooklyn and um he gets picked up at 6:30 and gets to school 8:30. I have done um everything in my part in order for this bus route to change and nothing has happened. I
called um OPT. I spoke to the coordinator, parent coordinator at school and file documentation with the doctor um so they can put in the IEP and add it to the IEP. She has not done that. It's been over a month. we have kept in
contact and they she said that they received it but that they haven't um implemented and it's always like a I don't know like a it just doesn't nothing happens.
So um I don't know what else to do because I already have made um several complaints in September. It started fine. and he was getting picked up at 7:00 and I was happy with that and I was they had no problem. Then they changed
it to this route which comes at 6:30. Now it's coming at 6:38 and didn't change much and he still gets there late. Um he also had you know a sore
from sitting because he I guess he sits in the school a lot then sits um on the bus that whole time. Also he's the first one to get the last one to get dropped off. So it's just not it's just unfair.
He gets out of school uh he gets on the bus at 2:00. He gets here sometimes at 4:15. The earliest he has gotten home is 3:30 and that's if there's like many kids that didn't get on the bus.
So that's that's what I've been dealing with. So, um, when you add the accommodations, I couldn't tell from from what you describe if >> Well, I did the documentation cuz they
didn't they didn't get to add it yet to the IEP. I have no idea why. >> No, I can tell you why, mama. Um, >> okay. So well one I mean other than you know people dragging their feet or whatever the issue might be on the
school level this is considered um more restrictive. So it's as if you are adding you know um more speech or adding a therapy that the child didn't have
before. you actually have to have an IEP meeting and it has to be like sort of a a re not a necessarily a rear where they actually test your child and do assessments but they they have to treat it like a reconvene or you know the the
psychologist must be present not just the teachers and sometimes depending on the experience level of the staff at the school they might not realize that. So,
if they try to do an IEP uh with the teacher or try to just add it as an amendment, it's not going to go. If you were dropping something, you know, then it's like so easy. But whenever you are
adding something that makes more, you know, special attention and work have to be done on behalf of the student. they are treating that like something that has to really go through all the process. So what you so that's why when
we talk about this in the um the most recent link that I put there and again some of the um forms in there might not be right yet. I'm trying to make a copy of something else um that has some other other sources
including video um for for people who want to learn it that way. Um, >> but you >> I'm glad you mentioned that. I'm sorry I interrupt you that you said that it's easier to drop it because they did they dropped
>> my son's bus. Um, major had a onetoone for the bus and they had mainly dropped that during what the p in the pandemic or after like two years like a year into two years after the pandemic looks like after and I remember um that I didn't
want to drop because he need you know he needed his onetoone. Um, I'm glad that now, I mean, he doesn't, but at the time he really needed, but they didn't have staff. So, the fact they didn't have staff and I was like, well, he's then he
wasn't allowed to go on a bus. They dropped it like right away. Um, so that is so true. And I was like, why is it so hard to add something >> then than to drop something? And and that's exactly what happened.
And um yeah, but they I just feel like if if that's the law and and they know it's over two hours, why gave themselves and why put this law and then violate this law continuously for so long? >> Mhm. >> I I just don't understand.
>> Right. >> I think it's so unfair. >> Mhm. So, when people are doing um the process to try to get the accommodations, >> there's the application, there's the
paperwork from the doctor, there's a HIPPO release form that you have to ask the doctor to do, but at the same time that you're in touch with your doctor, you have to be in touch with the schoolbased support team or the school
assessment team or who you school psychologist and get them to um start planning a meeting for you in which that that accommodation can be added
um once you have the paperwork. >> Okay. So, I'm going to have to do my homework. >> Thank you. Yeah. And so I just realized that >> I just was finally able to copy and paste, >> you know, three different sources for
how to get accommodations, >> okay, >> on the bus and, you know, in general for other people who are here. Um, that also includes even having a mini wagon. So, if you have a small child and they just
happen to be on a short bus, don't leave it up to chance. By the time they're in first grade or maybe even kindergarten, they may appear at your house one day a full-size bus
uh standard with um you know a lot of sounds and vibrations and people and overwhelm for sensory. um you cannot assume that that's going
to continue by itself. They call that the mini wagon and that's also an accommodation. Um so actually um >> we have these various links and
um >> some have more than one language. Um, and if if that's not good enough, again, the emails that were posted first, we can repost those cuz many more people have joined
um to try to get one-on-one assistance with uh, you know, these processes. But I can't lie, the the actual form is really hard to find right now. And so
again, when you talk to your school, they might have one on file. Um, we, you know, you can talk to myself or Stephanie or we might have a sample even though it's like old and it doesn't say
who the chancellor is right now or something. Yes, the mini wagon is the short bus that holds fewer students. There's a few um models with slightly different numbers of students, but that
is the term that they use as a medical transportation accommodation. Antonia and everybody else. Okay. Um, >> another thing I noticed is, um, if the
wordy mini wagon is not added in the IEP, >> your child has the chance of being put into a big bus. Um, it depends on the route and depends on the school.
>> Hello, are you there? >> Yes. >> Can I help you? >> My name is Jennifer. I am calling from IARE Health regarding your improved Medicare benefits. Can you confirm if you have Medicare part A and B? >> We do. Please take me off the list cuz
you continue to call me and I already have told them that we don't need any service. We already have our service. >> Sorry. Sorry about that. >> We're going to go back to the questions quick. back questions.
There was a okay limited time travel we answer that one and about there's no bus paras is impossible to find them. Miss President Angel had added that the council has been working with CUNI
students and HR to try to fix some spaces. we that they're also trying asking questions if contacts and agencies for paras outside of the school. Mhm. >> Do you have any insight on that on the
agency paras? Cuz I heard I've heard good and bad on on those not just with busing as well as with having them um to fulfill our
spaces in the school. So, I was actually going to ask um how it went with the par recruitment um last week because in the survey for
people who were registering for that, it gave them a choice to say, I'm interested in the classroom, I'm interested the bus or I'm interested both. So, I was wondering if through this um
collaboration, the council has been able to convince DOE to hire anybody to just do bus power without them being because that they up
until now they've always had to be on a payroll as a parah or a sub, you know, a substitute par can do it. Um, but it's a side job. It's not its own job alone as far as we know. I have um a
resource link that it's kind of a lot of information, but towards the bottom we do have some quotes from parents about uh agencies as they have experienced them.
Um, we saw some of those contracts with those agencies. We saw in the beginning of this year, there was one that there seemed to be some technical glitches cuz either they
were making everybody go to a particular agency or they were doing things like um not putting the full um trans transmitt. So, somebody was supposed to get 1.0, O
meaning they get the full pay and it got changed to a 2 20%. Um the agency paras actually get paid for the whole day because they go
sometimes very far you know from their home and your home for the the specialized schools. A lot of the um it seems like a lot of the non-public students will get directed to the agency first because
they're not you know UFT right in the school there's an agreement with the parah and teachers union to start with that first and work your way up. The one thing I do know um is that um last
summer since the summer's kind of coming up, you know, people are putting in for summer rising and those things um they made less of a wait time between um
you or your principal saying that the par is needed for that route for that child rather oneto one uh and being able to take it to the agency. So during the school year, I think they have to wait
either five or 10 business days. And in that time, they you could still pester your principal to say, okay, if there's nobody in the building, is there anybody in the district? And if there's nobody in the district, is there anybody in the city? Uh and one other resource we have
because PIST has a a Facebook group. We found out from one of the members there that who's a parah that there's a par Facebook group where um if we ask her uh she would post
something where you have to say your neighborhood the school neighborhood and you know more or less what time that the the bus is coming in the morning and the dismissal and and somebody, you
know, there have been cases where somebody will say, "Oh, I could do that, you know, um because it's not going to make me late to my regular job." You know, again, these are the uft paras. So, um those are some resources that are
mentioned in the most recent link that I put into the chat, which is in English and Spanish. I'm looking around for some PDF. We do have some information in Bangla. Um,
and I do have one link that leads to pretty much it's like a table of contents of all the resources on the PIST NYC uh website and um you can do a
a search on there like a control find and you can see which things cuz we definitely have uh Bangla uh for um the first steps of making your your bus complaint and so on. The only thing that
might be missing is actually the email to this committee because it was different before when I'm you know originally created that um that flyer. So I'm going to mute in case there's something else that we're missing on the
chat or hand No problem. Other people made comments that um about agency paras that they were not so great. I've heard that as well. Um, that's why I say I've heard both both situ
situations. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it hasn't worked out. That's what we trying to figure out where are the gaps that way we can make it work cuz we already have enough gaps without paras.
And we need to get these kiddos back to school. One second. Okay. Does anybody have any other questions? Any other concerns? I'm just looking through the chat.
Miss Sarah also added a lot of links in the chat for all all of you guys. I do have some if we want to sort of zoom out and and talk about some other um
developments citywide, statewide, and things that people can advocate for. Um >> Okay. Yes. You could give us some updates. >> Uhhuh. Okay. All right. So, yeah, I feel like um the group hasn't met in a couple
of months and um as I mentioned, the um the city controller did a whole study of OPT. Um, we're trying to make a little a shorter um video
of the um highlights of the the press conference about that. But one of the things that they concluded was that um the way it's organized
is pretty chaotic with these 48 to 52, you know, different companies. Um and um there's things that stand in the way of
re bidding those routes. Um but there are two other ways to address the the overhaul that's needed of the
service of yellow busing. Um, one was to make it a cityrun service. So to make it a public service uh instead of privatized. Um,
and in that way you would have everybody working for one entity. um you would have the possibility of more uh things being the same across from one base to
another. You would have possibility of if we need only the air conditioned buses cuz they're not all have you know functioning air condition at any given time. If you want to make sure those are
the ones that do the summer runs instead of oh well whichever company got the contract has to do the summer runs and half of their buses have AC and half don't. Those are the kind of things that
could be more centralized uh if it became a city service. Um and >> and that's also an accommodation that they could have added in the IEP. Correct.
>> Air conditioning. Yes. on a one by one basis they they you you know you have to show like oh my child takes such and such medication and if they get hot the medication doesn't work >> or they have asthma and if they get hot
or if the doctor if the sorry if the if the matron opens the window and a bug bites my child they're going to blow up with allergies so they have to be in a closed >> as well Okay. >> Yeah. Yes. Very much so. Seizures are
affected by heat. Of course. Thank you. >> No problem. >> No point. Yeah. Um but it's not again automatic. There are laws, but the law to make all of the special ed routes have um air conditioning
is not supposed to take effect until 2035. So they claim that that's time to match with when they have to turn over to electric um >> vehicles. >> That's why I wanted to make some of them
aware that are in this call since we're talking about like limited accommodations. I mean limited time travel. Um that this is another accommodation that could be added in the IEP because yes, it's something that we all think
should happen, but it's not something that is actually being done and the way that we could ensure it happens is by having it mandated, >> right? So it's again going to be that process
with the doctor and with another meeting >> because you said 2030 for the law, right? >> Yeah. 2035. >> Okay. >> Only nice bus is going to be electric by 2030. However, I will say so right now um I'm just going to
>> the best n years for it to actually >> Yeah. It's ridiculous. >> Yeah. >> Um all right. So yeah, so that's advocacy that we need with all of you know the the city leadership and everything else because
it is possible to do work on those buses and make them have air conditioning without getting a whole new bus. And you know um you you can see advertisements for companies which specialize in doing
that um inside of magazines for the student transportation industry. You know it happens. So the algorithm makes things like that pop up on pissed social
media. So, I'm going in. I'm looking and it's like, "Oh, they have somebody to make it electric. They have somebody to make it AC." Um, I noticed Mr. Grand Champs, uh, I'm answering your question
about contacting the company. That's a little strange. And we should talk about the school bus app. It says that they no longer are listing contact information for the bus company. And the phone number wasn't handy. um for that family.
So, we have sort of crowdsourced a list um and again this link I just added is in English and Spanish. It's mostly phone numbers uh with the names of the companies if
you know the company. Um, worst case scenario, they may have um subcontracted out to another
even smaller company or they may have gotten bought out. I don't know exactly everything. We do know um that at the beginning of the year the company called GBC uh actually in the in the summer stopped
doing K through 12 and those routes went to Pride and Total which is owned by something called First Student which is a whole other story. This is big international company. Um
the Oh, okay. So for the Oh, wow. So that that means that they took it down from DOE. So I'm not sure what's going on. And I'm going to take this up with some people. Hold on. Why did the bus company info disappear? Wow.
Um H Yeah, that's that's suspicious. Well, unless maybe they're just, you know, redoing something and it'll be popping up back again in a week. But in the meantime, we do have a bunch of them
from like workers who work at the place where they have, you know, even the DOE website had the wrong number. Um, so you can try this one um
to see if you can find it. The app, I will say, um, is also a contract via the school bus app. Um, and we've definitely heard about a lot of problems with it, a lot of money
wasted when people couldn't even use it. Um, some of the money not all given to the company yet. The contract expires in August of this year. So for people who
uh ever, you know, consider going to like the panel for education policy when they talk about contracts, it's early on in the meeting. And um there's also uh ways to to submit your concerns in
person. Um, you know, we're not thrilled with with this app, the accuracy or the availability. Many many people have problems with it.
It's glitching. It's it's overseas. It they're, you know, still hiring people to develop the algorithm and blah blah blah. Um so that's one of the big picture things. the um the bus company
contracts did get extended again another two months just a week ago Wednesday um because the three-year contract that got voted in the fall um
still has to be registered with the comproller and that's a new comproller looking at a lot and lot of contracts. So anyway, we all have busing and I think um if you remember there was like this threat from
the companies to just fire everybody. Uh, I think they're not going to try to threaten us like that anytime soon because, um, we, you know, kind of showed them that the parents and the the
workers were on the same page and weren't going to have it, you know. Yeah. The map doesn't show up. I've seen that. Yeah. Um, okay. So, there's a request for the most recent medical accommodation
request form. And I have to tell you, I couldn't find it this year. It was not in the place where it was 2 years ago, where it was last year. Uh, but we do have I think I have a PDF of one that's
standard. Um, so it doesn't say the current chancellor and logo, but it doesn't have an old one either. So hopefully that will work. So if um if people can just give me a minute to try to look for that. There's that's one of
the PDFs I wanted to share. Okay. Oh, >> I'm sorry. Going back. Go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead. Okay. >> Um I I think it's important also to mention when you have that accommodation like limited time travel, parents forget when
they go to their annual IEP meeting to bring that form already filled out and signed by your doctor. So there's no issue when you get to the summer, oh, we removed your your limited time travel. It's like they don't tell parents that, but that needs to go in every single
year, a brand new one. It could say the same thing, but it has to be stamped and signed by the doctor. And I always bring it to the IEP and parents forget, you know, but I could not find the form. So now that's why I was asking you. I can't find the form that I used to always find. I have
a copy of the old one like you said, but I just It's like they're purposely not letting us find it. Maybe that's the way I I see it. I don't know. Maybe I'm being too cynical, but >> they sometime they're making it not accessible. >> Yes. >> Mhm. >> For sure.
and a couple of responses on the app. My app actually works really well when it's not working. The driver didn't put it on. That's really it. And then I asked them about, "Oh, I'll tomorrow. Tomorrow." So, I would just ask the driver say, "Hey, I'm trying to track you, so I'm here on time. Can you please, you know, put it on?" It's
really them not wanting to be tracked, but they have to put it on. Has nothing to do with the bus company. Once you tell them nicely and you they know that you're looking because most parents don't even download it and that's the issue. So you say it nicely, you know, oh, you know, I need I want to be outside on time for you, not you know,
and then you you'll be shocked it'll be on that afternoon because they're supposed to put it on. By the way, I'm Feday. I'm one of the newest members of the council and I found out about the council through this busing committee last year. So, and Sarah, like you have the most amazing
Facebook page. I'm happy to meet you. I was wondering who was behind it and that's you which is great. >> Susanna connected with you to get the the Medicaid stuff and it helped me get my son's Medicaid.
>> Oh, you you connected with me. >> So I love you equally with mutual admiration. >> A you sent us you sent us the bus contact card. You didn't send the medical. >> I know but I wanted but you were you saying that reminded me. I'm still looking. Okay, no problem. Um,
>> I'm having a meeting on Wednesday, by the way, on Medicaid if you want to. I'll I'll send you the link. It's going to be a good one. >> But it is for everybody >> and we could share with everyone. I I work as uh um I guess you know what am I do? What do I do? I'm a broker. I'm a parent first. I'm a broker, but I became
an expert on Medicaid renewals because all the people I was working with were losing their Medicaid. And I became an expert on it by them losing it, my son as well. and now I'm presenting with all the agencies on how to fill out your application, what to add, all good
stuff. So, we can share it. Um, but that's Yadira. That's what she's looking for. That's what Sarah's looking for now. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> But that's something you want to do every year when you go to your annual meeting. You just say, "Here you go." And then I everything I tell people I
work with is no matter what you give in person, you keep your copy and then you always follow up with an email because they're they're going to do everything they can not to put that in again. I can guarantee that. >> And also adding the bus power as well.
>> Yes. A hard time too. >> And bus power if it maybe I'm wrong for saying this. I would only do it if you absolutely need it because how many times could your kid not go to school? they can't find the right person. So, you know, your kid, you know what I'm
saying? They if they need it, they need it. But sometimes parents are pushed into it because the school wants it and then they don't help them find someone and then parents can't go to work. The kid can't go to school. So, it's just a disaster, honestly. >> Yeah. It it makes it be on the on limbo,
especially for working parents. >> I'm going to send the Medicaid link right now on that meeting. I'll forward it. Yeah. Basically, I'm going to run through uh step by step with a real application, which was my son's application, but I just removed his data and I'm going to show you how to fill it out. Um because I think as parents, we
have to help each other. >> Thank you for that. >> Yeah, no worries. I know it's not busing, but I just wanted to share that. >> No, we appreciate it. It's it has to do with people like you, which means if we don't have our Medicaid, they >> And that's how Sarah knows me. I didn't I didn't even know you knew me, Sarah.
That's good. It's all good. Um, I'm going to post it. It's on April 1st at 10 o'clock. >> Thank you. >> Which is which is Wednesday. Oh goodness. Okay. >> Not everyone has to renew annually, but those who do, you know, are losing their
Medicaid, which again, I think it's on purpose, but that's another story. Um, so Sophia said she calls the driver. Driver does not put that on. that goes through your IEP team meeting, specifically your school psychologist. Those people
apparent the driver. Yeah. >> Oh, then call callouble. Put complaints in. They they get in big trouble. They would get in big trouble. You know, I we always try to get people to talk with your
bus team the way you would want to be spoken to as a worker um on your job, you know, um you don't have to always go straight to the supervisor and the boss because they they may be doing the best
they can. And we've actually had a parent open her app and the bus driver opens his app and they're showing each other and he's like, "Oh my god, you only see that? Look, this is what I see." And we also through the Facebook we
found out that the app is not even providing GPS for the drivers. so that they um you know can actually have a turnbyturn itinerary the way you would if you just
did Google maps or you know >> oh >> the um yeah your GPS the carman or whatever it's called >> those um that's not what it's for the company to track the driver
>> um >> they want them yeah they have to track them it's really so it's not really helping them it's just basically tracking where they are at that moment, >> right? >> That >> I agree with that. Um the it in my end they show one thing, in their end it
showed another and when I I showed them they were able to see why I kept calling to see where they was at because they showed me that they was in one location for like 20 minutes. So I felt the bus broke down.
>> Wow. So I since I've been hearing those things been happening, I just thought it was something like that. And we also been dealing with a lot of snow. >> Yes. >> And all of this. So that was another reason I was looking more into the app
to make sure that I was downstairs on time for them. >> Exactly. Another thing if if you have self-direction because it's very expensive and I don't expect anyone to afford it. But from through my son's budget every month it pays for my son's angel sense which is a godsend. It's a
little like GPS. I put it in his backpack and that tells me everything where he's going, how fast the bus is going, if they make extra stops. That's how I found out that they were doing stops before my son even though he was the first drop off because it alerts you
and says, you know, your child is in an area that they don't. So, it's called Angel Sense. It's super expensive though, so only if you have um either family support services will pay for it or self-direction, but they'll pay for the monthly fee and then you could track everything
through us was family support services. >> They'll pick it up. Yeah, they'll pick it up. Not everyone has, you know, Jewish board, something like like preventive service. >> Yeah. Through those agencies. So, some people have HCBS waiver >> and they can get self-direction, but now
they're not giving little kids that under eight. So, they only get family support to begin, but you could use that money. It's really an amazing device. Or what do you call those iPhone uh Apple? >> Are you able to help with that in one of your workshops? >> Huh? >> Are you able to help with that in one of
your workshops? >> I'm not taking any new cases, but I have recommendations for brokers. I think everyone should if they can look into self-direction because that budget you know my son he gets everything all his classes his staff everythingies
that have HSBC services. >> Yes. So HCBS um is a waiver that you get um after 8 years old now and then you could have traditional services or you could apply for self-direction. My biggest regret, and I will do this one day, is to learn Spanish because I feel
like I would be able to get the message across. But what I love about this is they can now translate what I'm saying. It's very important to look into self-direction. And every burrow has a disabilities council. So if you're in the Bronx, they have one. Queens, I live
in Staten Island and I'm the executive vice chair of my disabilities council, but they have meetings every month. It's good to go to those meetings. and I pushed for interpretation. Um, and now we're doing that because my parents >> Sarah is part of the Bronx. >> Yeah. My parents came here, they didn't
speak a lick of English. We're Albanian and, you know, I had to translate for them. So, you grow up quick when you do that as a as a first, you know, uh, first generation. But I think it's important to look at all the things you can um, because we have to fight for our kids and our kids are the most vulnerable. They need the most support,
you know. Thank you, >> Miss Sarah. >> And the same song. That's good, Sophia. I like that. >> Hold on. >> And Sarah's going to look for that form and hopefully get it to us cuz I'm telling you, looking. I've been looking. It's not I can't find it.
>> If we don't find it by the by the end of this meeting, we will look for it and we will email it to all of the um all of the participants that register that are here tonight. >> Um >> Yeah. cuz we do it. Sarah, maybe we
could ask um >> one of the has it. They have it. >> So, our people have it. >> Yeah, I have a I have I did pull down the one, >> but like how we said like why don't we have access to the link
>> right? >> Like we could all get the form from somebody but it's never easy. Yeah, it's never easy to get that form and for some reason this year I just I can't find it and I need it for my IEP because like I said annually I have it redone. >> Yeah, I think that would be a good qu we
we will raise those questions. Mhm. >> If I may share uh my experience uh also with the form >> um I had to do the IEP uh this year >> and I the school didn't provide for a form and I tried to look it up on the
DOE website and however when I printed it and I completed it I have to um took it to the doctor and completed the form. when I gave it to the school, it was the incorrect letter head like um some there's some changes. So then then and
there they gave me the correct one. >> But did they did they email it to you or did they just give you like a print? >> And they gave me a print. They didn't email it. >> Oh yeah. They don't want to see it. >> I wish I could share it with you, but they gave me a print. >> Yeah. This is the one I've used, Sarah. I don't know if they're allowing us to
use this anymore. This is the one I've used for years, >> right? >> It's like a you know. >> Yeah. This one was for both the um like a temporary um medical child breaks their leg and they only need busing until they get out
of the class. >> And for the however, like you said that that's not it. And the last person who gave me one gave me the old I recognize it. It's the old one. I have it in a few places. >> The problem is right now I'm not
remembering who it was. I'm still searching around, but as Stephanie said, if everybody here who registered with an email can get um an email back from the committee with
with some of these resources for you and we will also update as soon as we know something else, we'll update it on the website. So I do, you know, recommend people um this is the I'm typing into
the chat the website and um the resource page uh you know has a lot of these things and you can also tell us what what's not there that should be um and we also need
help you know to make some of it to update it and to make more languages to make brief videos showing people how to do certain things visually. Um, but the the other form that I did
attach, I do want to bring this up for people. Um, the bus emergency contact card. If your um if your bus attendant is experienced and
the company has been around, they know and they have a stack of these emergency contact forms to give you. Um, but we don't know and we we don't see it happening as consistently
at some of the, you know, non-union uh, companies or places where there's many changes, frequent changes to who's working on your route. You want to make sure that
uh especially these days for safety reasons and uh people trying um to not have to be necessarily on the street because of ICE, Homeland Security, all of the chaos
that is happening. The bus contact card um is something to keep a blank for yourself and you know if you can print it, fill it out. If you can't print it,
write it on it's the same size as an envelope. Um, so you could just write your own thing and hand it to the workers on the bus when you have a new route because you want to be able to say
to them uh, and it's in nine languages so far. They may update it for the new uh, languages that were added by DOE recently. Um, but you want to be able to
say what other adults can receive your child at drop off from the bus. You also have to say yes or no. um if your child you feel is old enough,
responsible, and safe enough to go into the um to to come off of the bus by themsel with no adult. And you know, maybe they just have to knock or they have the key uh and they can do that for
themsel, but you you have to sign one way or the other um to that. And what we found that was very scary to us as parents, the school's website
only has one side of it. They do not have the side with the translations of those very important question about whether or not my child can come down from this bus without an adult to
receive them. So please, please have your own blank of both really the accommodation form to redo it from one year to the next or from when you get a new doctor for your child. Or you want a
specialist and the primary pediatrician doing that for you to strengthen your argument with um accommodations. uh at the office of health and mental health who would then approve it with
for OPT that but also have please a copy of this contact card and tell other parents about it and make sure if you haven't gotten it um from your team at you know be ready for for the first day of summer school all of those things.
It's good to h to have your own uh blank handy. We'll try to do that in the in the website, but I don't have a way for PDFs on that website, and the photos are not as clear. Um, so yeah, we're going
to have to fight them about the the link to the accommodation form. um and the link or or rather posting the PDF both sides.
It's been you know a couple of years that we noticed this. I have talked about it in um hearings about language access everywhere and it just still is u very disappointing. Okay.
I was also looking for it, but I couldn't find it. >> Yeah, I know. I have it. It's kind of hard to to multitask. So, I see that people are adding emails. Um, >> I'm saving them, >> right? So we can
>> if everyone asks their email in the chat, we will email you all of the resources, all the links that Miss Sarah has shared tonight, all of the forms that have been requested as well that we're searching for, um the PDF forms as
well as looking for the links for the forms. >> Okay. And >> does anyone has any other questions? Oops. Oh, there's my video. That's why I couldn't share. Hello.
Um, I wanted to mention that the um there's a there's a youth group that um has been campaigning for the Omni for student Omni to be expanded.
And um of course we endorsed the campaign. Many parent councils have um I know the citywide council on special education was one that um brought out how it's discriminatory to
uh provide these opportunities to students who do not ride the yellow bus and then deny it to the ones who ride the yellow bus. Um we've uh you know been offended that
past administration have announced it's omni for all. Every student can go to all these places but they are still limiting the um the students who ride the bus and even the students who walk
to school um you know to to fewer rides. Um, so this group took their position to the panel for education policy and there was a resolution that passed the other
night. Um, I want to try to show you guys. Yeah, I still I'm so sorry. I'm not My technology is not with me tonight. Um, but you know,
because this group of youth uh who mostly take the subway and you know, they want to be able to go to jobs and they want to be able to drop off their siblings and they want to go to museums and the whole city and they deserve it.
Well, they've also been compassionate about their peers with disabilities who um, you know, need the yellow bus for now. um haven't had travel training yet.
Uh maybe we'll always have to use accessoride, but there should be something comparable. Um there is some wording in the resolution. Some might not be 100% clear, but it
says all scholars should have access to the student omniards regardless of where they live in relation to their school or obtain eligibility for the yellow school bus. Keeping in mind that if a student
takes part in after school, they cannot take the school bus back home. So, I'm sure everybody here, you know, has stories about wanting your child to have some other ways to uh
return so that they could go to an event at school or you could go with them and bring them back. And why are we penalized um for those costs of transportation and not uh the students who don't take
the yellow bus? So anyway, this is a move in a good direction. The students had a rally. They testified at city council education committee budget hearing. Um and they are trying to have it really be
unlimited and really be for everybody. But again, this is a a resolution. It's not a law. Um, but we feel like it's a good time to keep pushing for this form of public transportation since
one of the main campaign issues of the current mayor had to do with um, you know, free and and fast um, buses. >> Are we able to share the resolution with them that way they could support
>> the link? Uh what I will share is the petition because that way people can sign the petition >> and um >> in support of the resolution. Correct. in support of the whole campaign to
expand this this Omni card to make it so that you know as already happens in some other cities around this country students can go wherever they need to go with the understanding that they don't
have you know full-time jobs so they they cannot pay $3 every time they want to do something else. Um and when >> and if you can as well please share the
support of the petition the petition in support of the resolution >> um with your families as well because our families also know our struggles with all of this busing
issues. Um, some of us can't go to work and our families have to help out in order for us to get to work when these things happen with our busing. So, it will be great if they also signed the
petition in order to support this change. >> Yes. And we know it's a special hardship on people who have many children in their household. You know, kids with siblings.
If you want to go somewhere, you're paying for all of them, especially on the weekend. So, the Omni, the student Omni allows some students to um do things on the weekend, summer
vacation time with the past. So far, it's four times a day for free, but our students are excluded uh because it's treated like a duplicate service. And it really is not. It's
really not a duplicate service because going to school and back is only two rides a day and then there is no busing as they said at 6:00 after after school Saturday, Sunday, etc. So, um,
>> at what age does travel training start? >> I feel like it's 14. Anybody here have experience with that? We have a resource about that again also on the pest um website
and I was going to try to oh 14 yep 14 Sophia thank you and yondera see >> is that that could be al another of the advocacy is about um the travel training and the
need of the opy cars for the travel training in order for them to get those daily living skills to ensure that they could um be within sus within the community to be able to do those resources after school and in the
weekends just like everyone else. >> That's right. >> Miss Karina said yes that travel training starts at 14. Thank you, Miss Karina. Oh, Mr. Diego, Miss Sophia. Yes. Thank you. >> Welcome. I can say something about that too if
you want. >> Yes, if you can. Yes. >> Last year, last summer, I participated in this um it was like a travel training but with the parents.
Um and it was virtual. was like like learning the the tools so we could work with our with our students with with our kids. Um and they were I found interesting
that they were something that they were offering was a an omni card at the end of the the program. You could you could get an omni card for your student and one for for you for the
parent. But in order to get that omni card, it you have to open your IEP to remove the the bus the to remove the
busing service. Um, I I I I didn't made it. Um, I I took the the the training and I try as much as with my daughter, but but my daughter
just turned 14 and and she she needs more training, right? So, I really not agree to remove the busing from her IEP. So, I didn't I didn't collect those omni
cards. Hopefully in the future we could do something like that, but we're not ready for it. >> Thank you for sharing. >> I agree. That's very It's dangerous >> and we there's supposed to be some
guarantees um to let you try it. Let you know let them get experience. um what you can do and I don't think you have to have self-direction for this but
some of the agencies outside of department of education also offer their own travel training. So um Y AI is one young adult institute
um and one of our members the the student took the training from that agency. Uh he's one of the the kids who really likes transit. He really wanted to do the train by himself. Um, mom just
didn't want to take it off the IEP and be stuck with nothing. Um, you know, and so he was able to do a few mornings by himself and the afternoons
on the bus. forget exactly, but you know, he was able, you could say, to mix and match traveling by himself and traveling on the bus. Um, and then it was a good thing they left it on his IEP
because he ended up transferring schools and now it's a whole new route that he has to learn to take himself and it's more complicated. And so, um, you know, he's back on the bus. He's full-time not
happy about it. Uh, cuz he wanted that independence, but you don't want to be stuck again, either paying for it or when circumstances occur where the the child is maybe regressing, having more
anxiety, running into problems. Um, okay. So, yeah, everybody has different experiences with with what your child's tolerance. I mean, I took the train by myself a lot, but also
it probably would have been better to have some company. Um, all right. I wanted to ask if anybody attended the presentation last Tuesday from Beyond
Access. They were supposed to talk about uh transportation in the summer. I didn't get to go. So, I'm just wondering if anybody learned anything or um if there's a link to the recording
yet beyond access. And meanwhile, I'm gonna put our travel training resource link in the chat in case there something useful there. >> Maybe we could share that um information with them as well in the emails.
>> Oh yeah, if we get hold of that. Yeah. Mhm. >> Just um >> Okay. >> Because I don't believe some of them have access to the Beyond Access series. >> Yeah, it's a little hard to find things.
It's a YouTube channel. Um, and they do record everything, but the order that they how long it takes to show up, I don't know. And, um, yeah,
I think that that when you go to the YouTube, it shows you the most popular ones instead of the most recent one or something like that. Okay. So the other thing, the last thing I want to say about um
student transportation, travel training is part of it. They need they're hiring. They're hiring people to be par profofessionals and teachers for the travel training program. Um those are jobs, you know,
some youth, some people in the community might um be well uh suited for. There are al always hiring school bus drivers and monitors.
Um unfortunately it's up to each company individually to do that recruitment and um we don't have that central control uh
that I was referring to when we talked about how the controller said maybe it could stop being private or actually there was another one I did not get to mention to solve this busing crisis. is
that maybe they could expand the nonprofit model that they already have. if anybody's child is on the um NY CBUS that NYC bus they umbrella services that's a
nonprofit and um you know they're trying to innovate and do things in such a way and they in the long term we think it would cost less for the city because
they're not taking off profit from the top. They're just putting it into the service and you know the vehicles and um ideas and routing and things that that we hope um they would maybe get a shot
at doing even more um so that it would help us with this chaos of too many companies and not all of them being equal. So um we want people to be constantly
aware if your school is doing career day, if your council person, assembly person is doing a job fair, some place that you know is doing, you know, some place that it would be appropriate to to
contact a couple of the companies that we know are at least responsive and have them come down or have some people from the um the workforce come down if it's during a time of day that they're not driving,
you know, to kind of encourage uh our students. And also, of course, bus paras. We've already talked about the the ridiculous shortage that if you um you know, if your child needs the bus parent and doesn't have it, they're
definitely going to miss school. and it's a huge problem. So, hiring, recruiting, and keeping the people by giving them, you know, these reasonable wages and pension and what they call employee protection provision.
Um, that's the state legislation that we've been pushing to try to get uh secured. However, if the overhaul, if the reorganization
happens where the buses go from being all these different private companies to either being one nonprofit or to being run by the city, similar to, I don't know, sanitation, you know, something else that has vehicles that they
organize or that the that the Department of Education runs. Um, probably the bus the the the trucks that bring the school lunch food, you know, that's run by the DOE, I think. I don't know, maybe they contract
it out as well. Anyway, that's those are just to help people envision something better and remember all the time that something better is possible. And you know, we have to
demand it. We really do. Um, so I promised you guys Oh, and one other thing I'm going to put in the chat, uh, because you're district 75 parents, we know that your students,
uh, and the schools have the teachers union, okay? and they also have a compliance form. Um, I just put it in the chat.
If there is a pattern of your student because of bad bus routes or no, you know, not showing up or having too many schools and therefore
they are getting to school late enough to miss services, educational or related services. if they're even if they're 20 15 minutes late, but it happens every day. Uh you can actually pursue
uh advocates at the teachers union. They have them in every burrow and the form is written for their members who are teachers to fill out, but it is
encouraged for parents to ignore that part and just fill it out about your child. um and it's confidential, but we've met some of these um union,
you know, uh staff who do definitely stay on OPT's case, uh until those routes are are repaired for that student's need. So, that's one thing. Um, the other one
I was going to put was the travel training cuz we have some of the brochures and there's a video. Uh, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. I'm going to copy this whole thing, put it in the chat.
>> Also had added that the beyond access webinars could take up to one to two weeks to be available. >> Okay. All right. So that's going to be later on and then we'll be into the holiday. So all right. Well, I'm putting
in the link the one that they did about travel training oh 3 years ago, but it's got some good stuff. And um at the
bottom of that um chat item, it's a link to everything that we have so far on the PIST website about travel training. I know that I have to update it and put some of the other languages that I
picked up at a resource fair earlier this year, this school year. But, you know, it does have some English and Spanish. So, I'm going down my list. We talked about the uh with Oh, >> were you going to say something,
Stephanie? I'm sorry. >> No, I was just going to add if there's any closing remarks. So, I guess we had them. Yeah, I just remember I have my list. Um, okay. I left off
two things that I jotted down. Um, one thing and this is important in the um, just for awareness in this fight to hold on to the
experience and train yellow bus drivers that that we do have. Um, we have a problem with the federal forcing the state department of motor vehicles to deny
licenses and renewal of commercial driver license to people based on um their place of birth and their status um you know their immigration status. So
that could be a factor in some of the shuffling when you had a driver and then you don't have them. I don't know for sure. You know, every there's different reasons why um
a driver temporarily or permanently is not on your child's route any longer. But this is an issue that we just will need to be aware. It's not something that's happening far away. It's going to
affect daytoday um how long the routes are. It's going to affect, you know, whether you have somebody who's experienced or somebody brand new because they were desperate because
their experienced person was denied having the license renewed because of this, you know, discrimination against um people who were born someplace other than here. So something else to be
angry about and that's why our name is pissed. Um another point the um we talked about okay the small van
um nagaro the contracts so the call center if anybody has called the opt number most of us know it by heart um it's run by a company in California
now and they don't really have a lot of power to do anything for you. They they're not telling you the child's route details um on the ground that that's confidential.
Um, but also they don't have language translators available the way they should at that place and the way I think the contract said they were going to. Um, and that's
been also very disappointing. So for those who want to make comments to the panel for education policy, that contract comes up in June or rather it finishes in June. So people have had
bad experiences or good experiences with the phone center. I don't call it a help desk cuz they don't really help too too much. They might be very nice, but you know, OPT is the one making the
routes and it takes you getting the complaint number is only step one. Then writing an email, copying advocates, getting, you know, your school to do complaints, getting other parents on the
same route to do complaints. It takes so much for any attention to get uh placed on these route problems. Just by you making the one phone call unfortunately is not
going to produce a solution. So, um if people who um I what I'll do is I'll give you in the chat the link to
subscribe to the uh pissed mailing list and we're always going to be telling people one month at a time, here are things that are happening. Here's the D75 meetings. Here's the PEP meetings.
Um here's any kind of hearing any education rallies any development with Omni um please you know keep informed that way even in the summer we'll be doing this
and sometimes we need it worse in the summer because that's some chaos too right so that is in the chat a link to just give me your email and um any major topic that you need some help with if
anything. >> Thank you, Miss Sar. >> We appreciate it. >> Thanks for having us. >> No problem. >> Well, is the meeting in April?
>> Yes, we will be meeting in April. Give me one second. I believe it it's going to be April 27, but I'll confirm because April 20th we have our CCDs 75
town hall. >> Oh. Oh, is April with the chancellor? >> Yes. >> Okay. Oh, I saw that and thought it was March. I thought I missed it. Do you want to go ahead and and announce that
for everybody? And I'm I'm going to pay attention. >> Yes. >> Um on Wednesday, we have our citywide council meeting >> um where President Angel will make those announcements about the town hall.
>> Okay. >> The location would be Give me one second. cuz I believe it's posted on the Instagram already.
>> I think I saw one that was >> going to be in in Manhattan. >> Yeah. East 100 something. >> Mhm. is going to be in 55 East 120th Street, Manhattan, New York, April 20th
at 6 PM. And they will be taking questions um as well from the audience. So, if you're near, you could be able to come on by. They have been having the
town halls um for all of the CEC's and citywise. with the chancellor. Some of them was done with the previous chancellor with Miss Melissa Aless. Um, and some are being done with our new
chancellor, Kamal Samuels. Correct. Right. Did I say his name right? >> Sounded right to me. Kamar Kamar Sam Samuels.
Kamar Samuels. and he will be there at PSM079 Corin School. >> Well, thank you all for joining us tonight.
We appreciate your time. We appreciate your advocacy and your resilience and trying to ensure that all of the children get get the things that they need to make so that they get get to
school as well to get the resources that they need. So, thank you again for joining us tonight. Happy woman's history. Thank you again, Mr. Grand Champs. We appreciate you.
>> And thank you to our interpreters as well. We will re be releasing our interpreters at 7:54 p.m. Thank you. Have a good night everyone. >> Bye.
>> Bye. Good day everyone. Bye bye. >> Happy Monday.