PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Rima Izquierdo, Member of the Public, on School Bus Transportation Issues
4:27:56
·
3 min
Rima Izquierdo provided testimony on various issues related to school bus transportation in New York City, highlighting problems with timing, routing, and communication. She spoke on behalf of an unnamed organization that works with advocacy groups like Advocates for Children.
- Raised concerns about students being picked up too early or late, resulting in late arrivals to school and missed instructional time
- Highlighted issues with the NYC bus app accessibility and its impact on parents' ability to track their children's transportation
- Pointed out problems with mixed-age students on the same bus and inconsistent routing for non-public school students
- Mentioned issues with OmniCard distribution and suggested looking into the rideshare contract
Rima Izquierdo
4:27:56
Hi.
4:27:56
Good afternoon.
4:27:57
Thank you, Cherish, for allowing me to speak today.
4:28:00
And so a lot of people have spoken about all common threads, so I'm going to try to extract unique information.
4:28:08
So one of the issues that I haven't heard a lot about is certainly in late to school.
4:28:12
So students are being picked up at 6 o'clock in the morning to go to school and still not getting school on time.
4:28:20
As far as I know, routes are supposed to start at 6:30 AM, and they're getting picked up late.
4:28:27
So, like, they'll they'll get picked up late after school.
4:28:30
So they'll get out at 2:50.
4:28:31
They will get picked up till 4 o'clock.
4:28:33
Also, they're getting dismissed before time.
4:28:36
So, for example, before ends at 2:50, the students start getting dismissed as early as 1:30 for busing and missing instructional time, and some students are missing instructional the time in the front of the day and in the back of the day, and this is also leading to behaviors due to inconsistent scheduling and inconsistent pickup times.
4:28:56
I didn't mention, but I am here speaking on behalf of where I work, which is sending you another parrot sensor such as including my seat and advocates for children.
4:29:06
And so we're also seeing this uptick of busing issues in our our advocacy particularly around our non public school students that go to 853-4410 schools who may have different session terms and are seeing multiple schools on buses where students are now either being picked up too early or left on bus is later because the schools have different sessions planned, and they're not aligning.
4:29:33
And the routing just doesn't make sense where it would be easier to have one school on a particular bus that this is not what's happening.
4:29:40
Even age parents were having students in kindergarten and high school, then I'm the same bus.
4:29:46
Also, the New York City bus app.
4:29:48
If parents don't have access to the New York City school app, they don't have access to the bus app.
4:29:53
If they don't have access to either of these, They can't see the transportation information, their route information, their bus company information.
4:30:01
They they can't see anything.
4:30:03
They'll put in a route number.
4:30:04
And then when they don't have access to the bus that you can't see you can identify for a student that doesn't speak, for example, if they're getting to school and sitting there for a half an hour.
4:30:14
And I wanna comment that OPT as per their liaison say that the meter for the time of the rock stops when the student arrives to the address.
4:30:24
So if they're sitting in front of the school for 45 minutes, because the route starts too early, that is not gonna be flagged on Okta's GPS time.
4:30:32
That is something that a parent or a school has to flag, and if that's not, then the students are just left.
4:30:37
They're sitting to to wait.
4:30:39
Additionally, army party not provided to parents that have to take their students to school.
4:30:44
So a student may be given apart, but the parent is not in there enough to pay to get on the bus even though this is the financial responsibility of the school.
4:30:52
For not having whatever they need in place to get that student to school.
4:30:55
Additionally, rideshare.
4:30:57
Please look into the rideshare contract.
John Hammer
4:30:58
Thank you.
4:30:59
Your time expired.
Rima Izquierdo
4:31:01
Thank you.
4:31:01
Please look into the rideshare contract.
