Any suggestions? Transportation issues I have recently stopped my son from going on the bus run. His school day begins at 9:20 and the bus was arriving at the front door for 8am. 1hr, 20mins!!! School finishes at 2pm, and my son would arrive home for 3pm as some of the children on the bus only attended a half day at school. But, recently, my son started getting off the bus terrified as there was another little boy who was slapping him every morning going to school and every evening coming home from school. I drive him to and from school. The journey, one-way, takes 20mins from the house to school. Over the last two weeks the school has been describing my son as a danger to himself because he keeps slapping himself... the slaps are without force and I never see any examples of it at home. The school used this matter of hurting himself as an argument to get another diagnosis or a review of the current diagnosis. The school seem to think my son has ODD and not autism.    Anyway, the bus run, though it freed things up for us just wasn't worth it in the end. That is absurd.  Wow and I thought 30 mins+ each way was bad. I  would try to  work soemthing out. This is one of the reasons (one of many) we opted not to enroll our youngest in the school system at all.  We have one elementary (out of 6 in the area) school in our district that services children with developmental delays.  Our drive by car would have been 25 minutes each direction; but on the bus, it was an hour and 45 minutes each way.  That's a ridiculous amount of time for ANY kid, let alone a kiddo with ADD/ADHD tendencies, high anxiety, and an itty-bitty bladder. For this one program, total kids on the bus for a.m. would have been 5.  Our pickup time was 5:50 a.m.  No way! I have a question regarding transportation to and from school. We just had a new IEP meeting.  His placement was changed, and requires him to go to class out of district. We live less than a mile away from his current school, which was awesome!  I’m pleased with his new placement and class; however not so pleased with the transportation arrangements. According to MapQuest it is 25 miles, and should take 39 minutes to get from our house to the other school. I drove it and it took about 45 minutes because of traffic. The problem is this – they plan on picking him up at 6:40 that is 1 hour and 50 minutes before school actually starts. His class is dismissed at 2:30 and he will not get home until 3:50 an hour and 20 min after school is over. All in all he would be on the bus over 3 hours a day! That’s 16 hours of riding a bus a week. I think that is absurd. Now, call me crazy but how in the world do they expect an ASD kid with a secondary dx of ADHD to ride a bus 3+ hrs. A day. Do I have a leg to stand on to appeal the designated transportation, and ask (ever so nicely) for them to get real and find him another option? Really, I wouldn’t be so irritated if it was an hour or even a little more to and from but 3+ hrs. A day is just plain excessive – especially when we live less than a mile from our home district, and if he were going there, he could be there in 2 minutes. Anyone know of anything that would help my cause I would be eternally grateful! And so would Gavin! My son rides the bus about 2 hours a day, and he's 3.  Unfortunately, yours is not the only kid who rides the bus, and it takes time to get everyone.  I don't think there's anything you can do legally.  Maybe the bus driver will work with you, mine tried.  I think special needs buses take longer because they get everyone at their homes, rather than set stops. Good question dad2luke&alan - I really don't know what schools they get dropped off at to be honest. There is a boy from our district that goes to the exact same class as Gavin, but Gavin can not ride the bus the other kid does because it is full. That bus picks up a bunch of mennonite kids and takes them to christian school. Since that bus is full, the school district made arrangements with the local intermediate unit to provide his transportation, since it's an intermediate unit run classroom. I imagine there is quite a variety of students on that bus. I'm going to look into that. Thanks! Our experience:  About an hour to cover 5 miles.  The bus was so late in getting to school that the school began to call us to see where son was.  First time we freaked out.  I hike, so I put my smallest GPS unit into his backpack to see what was happening.  We went through a lot of batteries since I could not turn it off until the end of the day when I got home. As far as I could tell from the tracks, the bus would stop places and wait 5-15 minutes before proceeding.  If every kid needed to be picked up (and it only seemed like it was 5 or so kids) the bus took a bit more than an hour and most of the time it was not moving.  It also seemed that if some kids early in the route were not being picked up, the bus just sat someplace so it would not be too early at the later stops.  I had one track where my son must have been the only one on the bus and they drove on the freeway and were home in 5 minutes. We did not see any way to improve things given the realities of how the bus must operate.  So we gave up and have driven my sons since then. Dad2Luke&Alan40218.5017939815You might find something helpful under my collection of bus resources: http://www.autism-pdd.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=28137&am p;KW=bus How many stops/pick up's does this bus make? I would call the special education director and explain your concerns and see if other arrangements can be made. And also the bus company, to see if rescheduling/re-routing is an option. Never hurts to ask, request. Hope you get things worked out! ___________________ momof3kidz   I cheat:  My son's school is on the way to work.  And I get to sleep in a bit more since I do not need to get my son ready so early in the morning. One question:  What are the other schools like.  I heard of one such route and it turned out that an elementary school kid was being offered a ride with Emotionally Disturbed high school kids.  Mom protested that the mix sounded dangerous. Thanks to all for you input! My irritation stems from the fact that he has to ride the bus that long because the school district is too cheap to spring for another bus/van. He is driven all over He-double hockey sticks to pick up kids and drop them off at other schools before he even gets to his. And like Dad2lukeandalan said, I think most of the time is spent sitting (in front of schools waiting for them to open so they can drop kids off.) My son's new school opens really late at 830, most others open between 745-8, so since it opens the latest, he is obviously going to be the last one droped off at school. And becasuse of the route they take he is the last one off the bus at night. We moved into town to be close to the school. Haha jokes on us. Driving him there is just not an option. It's 45min there and 45 min back. Not to mention the price of gas - We sleep during the day because we work 3rd shift, so there would go 3 hours of sleep time just to take him and pick him up ourselves. He's being a real trooper about it though. In other words he's taking it better than I am. He sleeps a little on the way there and then plays his nintendo ds the rest of the way. I am going to see what I can do about it though. If they can't offer him the supports he requires at his home district the least they can offer is reasonable transportaion arrangements for him to get to a district that does. DS gets picked up at around 8:25 am and his school starts at 8:55 am. Coming home school gets out at 3:35 and he gets home alittle before 4 pm. There are only 5 kids riding his bus and our school is literally 1-2 minutes away! I guess it does average out that each kid gets 5 or so minutes to get picked up or dropped off. That doesnt sound like any fun at all for you DS but its good hes entertaining himself! I would def. see if there could be a solution because thats pretty ridiculous! Maybe a smaller and strictly special needs bus is available for him to ride if you call transportation? Good luck!
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