Bumpy, uncomfortable, sometimes sweltering, and too often hours late. That’s how it feels for 150,000 New York City students to ride the school bus. Sometimes, it never comes at all.
The 2023-24 school year had more than 83,000 reported school bus delays in New York City, with the longest delays disproportionately impacting students with disabilities. Thousands of parents miss work, even leave their jobs altogether, just to get their child to school every day.
Having the school bus pick up your kid should be as routine as brushing their teeth.
The school bus system doesn’t just make kids chronically late; it also holds thousands of students back. Despite recent mayoral commitments to make afterschool programs universal, the current school bus contracts don’t cover afterschool drop-offs. That means 62,000 students with IEP mandated bus transportation and 14,000 students experiencing homelessness cannot participate in the enriching afterschool programs working families need.
We continue to close the door on these students’ full potential by perpetuating this substantial barrier to expanding afterschool for every student.
For nearly 50 years, generations of students have endured the same bad bus service provided by the same 50 or so bus contractors. Every five years, these bus contracts have gotten renewed without real changes. Long before this year’s June renewal deadline approached, City Hall, state legislators, labor partners, and bus contractors should have worked together to fix this.
With a little foresight, the city could and should have issued a new bids through a public and competitive solicitation, with better performance metrics, better wages for drivers, and additions like afterschool service built in.
Instead, the mayor is now signaling his support for five-year renewals to the existing crappy contracts, while the bus companies weave their way through emergency extensions using school yard bully tactics to strong arm their way to keep their sinecure.
Fifteen years ago, during a previous round of school bus negotiations, an owner of one of the companies actually brandished a loaded gun to force the Department of Education’s hand. Instead of a gun, this time around, the bus companies are weaponizing their services against our children and their drivers by threatening to stop service and halt wages.
Short-term, 60-day emergency extensions are already in place; the bus companies are creating an unnecessary panic laced with misinformation to hang onto these ancient contracts. When the public advocate and I sent a letter to Mayor Adams this past summer, we pushed for a more limited one-to-three year renewal, to allow Albany and the next mayoral administration to work together to competitively rebid these contracts with needed improvements.
At this point, some concerned parents whose children rely on the bus every day might understandably ask the city to implement five-year renewals, rather than risk an interruption of service. However, under the contemplated renewal, the city would be spending $2 billion a year for students to sit on routes longer than ninety minutes each way, not even to get to school for first or second period.
That option would mean $2 billion spent with the same roadblocks for students with disabilities and students in temporary housing who will graduate without being able to participate in after school programs like soccer practice or robotics or rehearsal for the school play. And we’d lose the chance to make anything better for another five years — completely bypassing the mayoral term that New Yorkers are voting for right now.
The Adams administration’s proposed five-year extensions are on the brink of arriving at the Panel for Education Policy in November for a vote. I urge the PEP to vote down these contracts and insist that the city find another lane. A one-year extension would give the next mayoral administration time to find a better path forward.
If the PEP votes to approve the five-year extensions, they’ll get dropped off next at the comptroller’s office for registration. If they arrive at my office for registration as they are, I will have to seriously consider whether or not these five-year renewals are in the best interest of our city, our children, and our education system.
Rather than shepherd broken contracts to my doorstep, let’s go back to the chalkboard and redraw our system of school transportation. Our students and families deserve nothing less.
Lander is New York City comptroller.
