PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Mark Gonsalves, Co-Chair of Citywide Council on Special Education
4:11:58
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172 sec
Mark Gonsalves, Co-Chair of the Citywide Council on Special Education and parent of two students with IEPs, testifies about ongoing issues with school bus transportation services in NYC. He criticizes the DOE and OPT for inadequate services, particularly for students with disabilities, and highlights problems with the bus tracking app, after-school transportation, and OmniCard eligibility.
- Gonsalves points out the low adoption rate of the GPS tracking app and ongoing technical issues
- He criticizes the city's administration for not supporting after-school busing for students with disabilities through NYCSBUS
- He accuses the DOE of discriminating against students with disabilities in terms of OmniCard eligibility and late busing options
Mark Gonsalves
4:11:58
Hi.
4:11:58
How are you doing?
4:11:59
Cher Joseph, Cherwan.
4:12:01
Thank you for holding this hearing.
4:12:03
I'm Mark Gonzales.
4:12:04
I am Coacher, the Citywide Council on Special Education, and a parent of 2 students with IEPs.
4:12:10
1 of whom has had door to door busing for the past Folbyers.
4:12:14
I'm speaking today as a parent and not as a member of CCSE.
4:12:18
The DOE and OPT Tri Heart, there's no doubt about that, but too often students and families have missing buses buses that take well more than 2 hours to get to and from school and buses that are constantly late.
4:12:31
The DOE testified today that only 51100 families are using a GPS tracking app on a daily basis of the 145,000 students speaking.
4:12:41
The bus.
4:12:42
Let me give you just one reason why.
4:12:44
The OPT's own phone hotline message states that only pioneer bus and NYC umbrella bus are eligible for the app.
4:12:53
If OPT came in to figure out how to use the app and how are families and students able to figure it out.
4:13:00
For that matter, I'm still waiting to be able to use the app as I still get an error message that something is went wrong, please try again.
4:13:06
Been going on this about the 2nd year.
4:13:08
OPT is trying to figure it out.
4:13:10
They can't figure it out.
4:13:12
We also heard testimony from a DOE that they can't support these students with after school busing due to EPP, and yet NYCS bus just signed a new contract with their drivers.
4:13:24
NYCS Bus was purchased with New York City taxpayer money and is run effective when effectively by the mayor's appointees.
4:13:32
NYCS Bus could have made these changes to support afterschool students, but the current administration of the city doesn't want to support these students with disabilities.
4:13:42
They testified that NYCS bus has been reducing their number of routes as a colossal failure.
4:13:48
We should be aiming to have a 100% of our routes under New York City school bus and not reducing a percentage of routes.
4:13:55
This is clearly a failure of our city's administration.
4:13:59
The DOE spoke about OmniCards and how great they were in their initial testimony But as the city council correctly called out, students with disabilities are not eligible for these cards.
4:14:09
The OPT test finds students with disabilities and other students being busing from school sponsored after school events are not eligible for late busing.
4:14:18
With our 4 Omni Cards.
4:14:20
What the DOE is saying is that this administration is comfortable discriminating against students with disabilities.
4:14:26
Let's be crystal clear about that.
4:14:29
New York City DOE busting is problematic, but it starts with the leadership of our city starts at the mayor's office.
4:14:35
There are amazing leaders and people in the DOE, including those that testified in front of you today.
4:14:41
But the key problem is the incompetence that's in the mayor's office and the failure to support our students and families.
4:14:49
Thank you very much.
