Regarding the Transportation Service Standards, we ask you to consider the following when they are re-introduced. For students who use school bus transportation, their school day starts when they step on the bus in the morning. Most students with disabilities do not need to be in separate buses, apart from their non-disabled peers. Even if that statement is aspirational right now, adding it to the Transportation Service Standards would demonstrate the School Board’s commitment to developing a more inclusive school system. And, we believe it’s likely that when you study the financial impact, you will find that moving towards an inclusive transportation system will save money.
We are also concerned that we have not heard anyone address the fact that students with disabilities will be disproportionately impacted by bell time changes. Many disabled students are bused to a school other than their neighborhood school because the neighborhood school does not have the special education program they have been assigned to. The bell time changes will have a disproportionate impact on these students. It will also impact the ability of students with disabilities to participate in learning. For example, the learning benefits for a student who takes medication for ADHD or anxiety and is assigned to a 9:30 am start time may be drastically reduced during the school day. A neurodiverse student who has a 2 hour morning routine to manage their transition into the school day and is assigned to a 7:30 am start time may have great difficulty with a 6:30 am bus pickup.
These are a few examples that illustrate the larger point – with any significant change such as bell times, we expect the district to address how it is explicitly considering the impacts on students with disabilities.
