“I have lost confidence in the current ability of [OSSE] to manage the transportation system in a safe and compliant manner,” Gilmore said in a July 22 letter to U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman.
District officials acknowledged the problems, which include a complete turnover in senior management of OSSE’s transportation division this summer. But D.C. State Superintendent Hosanna Mahaley said Monday that the issues are being addressed and that no child will ride to school next week in an unsafe bus.
“We are ready for school to start and we have more than enough buses,” Mahaley said.
Bus service for special needs students has been under federal court supervision for much of the last decade, a result of the Petties class action lawsuit brought by parents because of the District’s inability to get children to public and private schools scattered across the region in a safe and timely manner.
In 2003, Friedman appointed Gilmore to oversee the $80 million-a-year system. In May 2010, based on reports from Gilmore citing improved service, Friedman authorized him to begin gradually shifting control back to the District, citing improved on-time arrival performance and other benchmarks.
But a final restoration of day-to-day responsibility to OSSE was postponed several times because of continued complaints about service. In one instance last fall, according to the Children’s Law Center, a nonprofit which represents families of special education children, a 7-year-old boy with autism endured three-hour bus rides to St. Coletta, a public charter school near his home, wetting his pants several times because of the long trips.
Gilmore said in his July 22 report that he had no choice but to recommend that control of the system revert back to a court-appointed administrator. But in a follow-up letter to Mahaley last week, he said he would give the city 30 business days to correct the problems. Gilmore said he relented after a meeting with City Administrator Allen Lew, in which Lew pledged to work with OSSE to resolve the issues.
In a statement Monday, Lew spokesman Tony Robinson said the District was “keenly aware” of the issues raised by Gilmore and was working to ensure a successful school opening.
Gilmore said his investigation showed that at the end of the last school year in June, 492 buses — nearly 60 percent of the fleet — had not had an annual brake inspection. Mahaley said Monday that poor data about repairs made the issue seem more urgent than it was, and that the actual number of buses in question was much smaller.
In his report to Friedman, Gilmore also excoriated OSSE for bringing “little sense of urgency” to the transportation problems, and described agency management as “substandard,” “lackadaisical” and “incompetent.” He added that a top deputy, delegated by Mahaley to address transportation issues, instead “ran the Division into a significant hole.” Gilmore did not identify the official in his report. Mahaley said the individual had been dismissed but she declined repeated requests for the name Monday, citing personnel rules.
Mahaley said the top three officials over transportation have been replaced this summer, including the transportation director and the agency’s chief operating officer.
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