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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 12, 2009
Contact: Sarah Krauss
(212) 669-4193; (917) 541-0936
Release #:004-2009
PA Gotbaum Demands Immediate Action from DOE In Response to Children Left on Buses
MANHATTAN – Public Advocate Gotbaum today called for immediate action from the Department of Education (DOE) after a 7-year-old Queens child was found crying and alone on a locked school bus, the most recent in a series of mishaps involving school children left stranded by bus drivers and matrons. Public Advocate Gotbaum is calling on the DOE to create new policies to address this ongoing problem, including an immediate re-training of all drivers and matrons and requiring the DOE track safety statistics of bus companies, drivers and routes,and make the data publicly available.
In recent years, the DOE has seen major problems with student safety on the buses. Two weeks ago, a 4-year-old disabled child was found stranded on his Brooklyn bus, and on the first of the year, a severely disabled 22-year-old man was left overnight on a freezing bus.
Public Advocate Gotbaum said, “Enough is enough. For a school bus driver or matron, the very people we entrust to look after our children’s safety, to forget a child on a bus is just unacceptable. We’ve seen this happen too many times, and the DOE needs to step up and hold bus drivers accountable. The DOE must address this problem now and take whatever steps are needed to ensure that incidents like this never happen again.”
The Public Advocate is calling on the Department of Education to take the following steps, including:
1) Immediately re-train all bus drivers and matrons;
2) Establish a policy that would require any bus driver/matron who leaves a child on the bus to be discharged;
3) Establish a policy that would discharge any bus driver/matron with three safety violations in a two year period;
4) Require that the DOE track safety statistics of bus companies, individual drivers, and routes and make this data publically available;
5) Establish a “How's My Driving? Call 311” campaign with signs on the back of all New York City school buses.
New York State currently requires 1,000 hours of training for a cosmetology license but ten hours of training and a twice-yearly 3-hour refresher for school bus drivers. A Daily News story of March 2007, reports that the DOE covered up some 225 cases of bus abuse -- including a case of a bus driver driving kids while intoxicated.
In February 2007, Public Advocate Gotbaum called for a “School Bus Bill of Rights” in order to protect parents and students from the disruptions and dangers created by bus route changes.
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