Good morning, everyone.

Um, my name is Julia Mejia.

I am the Boston City Councillor at large and the chair of the Boston City Council's committee on education.

Today is March Thirtieth, thirty-first.

I knew that.

This does not say that, but the exact time is make sure I know what time zone I'm in.

This hearing is being recorded.

It is also being live streamed at Boston.gov slash city dash council dash TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel Eight.

Files Channel Nine Sixty Four.education at Boston dot gov.

And it will be made a part of the record and available to all counselors.

Public testimony will be taken throughout this hearing.

Um, and the individuals will be called in the order in which they have signed up, and we'll have two minutes to testify.

If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign up sheet near the entrance of the chamber.

If you're looking to testify virtually, please email Central Staff liaison, Megan at Megan.

Excuse me, C O R U G E D O at Boston.gov for the link, and your name will be added to the list.

Today's hearing is on Docket 0374 emergency hearing regarding the chronic um school bus delays and special education transportation failures.

This matter was sponsored by Councillor Aaron Murphy, Councillor Flynn, and Councillor Fitzgerald, and was referred to this committee on February the 11th, 2026.

And in true fashion, I got my binder thing from A.

And so today I am joined by my empty chamber here, y'all.

Councillor Murphy and Councillor President Counselor Braden.

And do I have any letters of absence?

None.

Okay.

So at the discretion of the chair, I will have opening statements.

And I will kick it over to the lead sponsor for theirs.

Thank you, Chair.

Important conversation we're going to have today.

Thank you for starting with the voices of the parents and teachers who live through this every day.

So I file back in February an emergency hearing order regarding the chronic school bus delays and special education transportation failures.

Boston Public Schools provides transportation to over 20,000 students across the city each day, and concerns regarding chronic and excessive bus delays have been ongoing and not new to the district.

Families, educators, and community members continue to report transportation failures after affecting schools across multiple neighborhoods.

And the volume and repetition of these communications have significantly increased, prompting the filing of this emergency hearing order.

At one Boston High School, buses have reportedly arrived hours after dismissal, forcing students to remain at school into the evening and on a recurring basis.

In another neighborhood, a regularly assigned elementary school bus route has reportedly arrived more than one hour late on multiple days per week, including a recent delay of approximately one hour and 18 minutes at pickup.

Recent reports also indicate at another high school, door-to-door transportation for special education students, including a student who uses a wheelchair, had not arrived for more than two hours after dismissal, leaving students at school until after 6 p.m.

for a 3 35 p.m.

release.

But these were just three families who had reached out with these concerns and had prompted myself and just for the record.

I know Councilor Fitzgerald and Flynn were original co-sponsors, but all members of this body, all counselors signed on to this hearing order, knowing it's important to have this conversation.

So I'm looking forward to hearing from concerned families and also the administration.

So thank you, Chair, for holding this hearing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Murphy.

Thank you, Madam President, Madam Chair, and thank you to Councillor Murphy, Councillor Flynn, and Counselor Fitzgerald for sponsoring this emergency hearing on school transportation.

I think it's it's a happening all across the city, but I'm particularly concerned about what's happening at the at the Edison this year.

Um last year they had about five instances of a buses not turning up throughout the whole school year, and it's multiple times a week at this point.

Uh, and to also share Councillor Murphy's comments, uh, school buses are uh not turning up to take students home in the evening, and teachers have to stay late to as late as 6:30, 7 o'clock in the evening uh until parents can uh come and pick their students up.

And I also hear that parents are concerned because their employers are saying, why are you having to leave your job to go and pick your student your kids up?

This is not acceptable.

So folks and their employment is actually under threat because they're in dangers of losing their job because they have to leave their so frequently have to leave their job to go pick their students, their children up at school.

So this is a serious situation, and also given the fact that we spend 200 million dollars on transportation in our school budget.

Um it's totally unacceptable.

We need to do better.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council President Um Braden and Counselor Murphy.

And just for the record, this hearing is to examine the ongoing school transportation performance across all Boston public schools.

The district transports roughly 20,000 students each day, making it one of the largest and most complex school transportation systems in the country.

At the same time, concerns regarding delays, miss routes, and service reliability are not new and have persisted across multiple years and administrations.

And so before I even walked into this chamber, even as a parent organizer, um, I was always getting calls from parents hysterical about the bus situation.

So this is nothing new.

Uh, but recent and and most recently, we were also in threat of receivership, and transportation was one of the chronic uh issues that they asked us to uh step up and do something about.

So recent reporting and data show that while there have been periods of improvement and on-time performance, the system has not consistently met its own reliability targets and families continue to report significant delays, including late arrivals and missed pickups.

This hearing is intended to establish a clear factual understanding of current conditions, particularly as they relate to special education and door-to-door transportation, identify the operational challenges contributing to these outcomes, and review how existing resources are being deployed to meet the needs of students and families.

We look forward to hearing directly from the administration and stakeholders to better understand where the system stands today and what steps are being taken so that we can have more consistent and reliable service.

And I'll just note uh that for me, as I mentioned in my opening remarks.

I think that these opportunities allow for us to be in community with each other and more of a brainstorming, okay, so we can get this right.

I'm not a judge, you're not here on the stand, especially I'm talking this to the administration.

So come in here, understanding that accountability and the frustration that families have is coming from a place of we want to get this right.

And so if we can walk out of here with some very specific next steps and to-dos to so that we can address it, then we're we're doing our job.

But if we're just bringing you in here just to complain and not do something about it, then we have failed our families.

So I'm going to ask us here collectively to come in with a space of like how we're gonna get this right.

So while y'all are listening to the public testimony, thinking about what we can do to fix it.

Does that sound like a good plan, y'all?

I know y'all usually stay here, but I'm glad that you're there.

As long as you're here, I'm happy to see you.

So thank you to the administration for being here.

Okay, I want to acknowledge that we also have been joined by counselor Weber.

Um, you are more than welcome to have uh opening remarks.

Shall you choose to use there?

Uh no, I apologize for being late.

Uh but no opening remarks.

Can you what is happening?

Is there no panel?

They're not sitting down.

Okay.

So public testimony really wants to stay up.

Okay.

But they're here.

There's a panel.

Sounds good.

And they're they're in the bleachers in the nosebleed section.

Can you all make your way here so it doesn't look awkward?

Thank you.

Does that feel better?

Okay.

Thank you.

And then we didn't want to take away from the buttons for you to hear.

We've heard directly already.

Okay, we have started.

Thank you.

We're good.

I and I'm going to encourage us.

We have one mic.

Um, so we'll utilize our time wisely.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Let's begin with public testimony.

I believe we have folks on Zoom.

And are you doing in person?

Are you signed up?

You're here to listen?

And I sound okay.

So we just have five.

Um, do you have the list or they're already here?

Trying to remember.

Okay, so can we start letting people in?

We have Lori Murphy, Katie Wright, Eugen Rojas, Cheryl Buckman, Mildred Lewis, Danielle Drinkman, Alma Waldoso Pope.

And the order that you were called upon, you have two minutes, and when you hear this, that means two minutes are up, okay?

Y'all don't act like you can't hear me.

All right.

Oh, you have to accept the invite to be a panelist.

There we go.

Lori Murphy.

You have two minutes.

Thank you so much for your time today.

My name is Lori Murphy, a proud resident of Rosendale and mom to two BPS students in second and fifth grade at the Hernandez in Roxbury, making us a BPS riding family since 2018.

This past year has been the worst by far in relation to buses being late or canceled.

From the data I've seen, our bus route alone is over 20 days, 21 counting today, actually, of either cancellations or significant delays this school year.

That is a month of school.

In the past five weeks alone, we've had nine cancellation or del cancellations or delays more than 40 minutes.

Imagine it's 7 a.m.

and you are getting your children ready for school, only to get an alert that there is no bus and having to figure out which parent can take the burden of driving through morning traffic to get them to school.

Again, this happened today.

The alternative when we can't drive them in, we waited out and kids miss the morning bell.

My kids specifically asked that I remind you that when their bus is very late, they miss out on breakfast, socializing with their friends, and um they're very important educational computer time.

Starting the day with routine matters so much to kids.

And a teacher told me that one of the students on a different bus route arrives 30 minutes late every single day.

They had a field trip last week that they had to hold for the entire grade to wait for him to arrive.

Or imagine getting a call from school at 3 10 p.m.

that you have to come get your kids right now because the bus was canceled.

Work is missed, the afternoon becomes super stressful, kids get home late and hungry and worn out.

My fifth grader wants you to know that he's had a miss baseball practice because of bus lateness.

And the impact on staff needing to stay late cannot go unnoticed.

I'm lucky that my bus route is a community of families that rally at the last minute to figure out carpools.

But my question is why do we have to do this?

There's a bus system in place.

But what really concerns me is the children whose parents cannot be here today.

The kids who are slipping through the cracks and just missing school because a bus was canceled and there's no other way for them to get to school.

And finally, what is happening with our bus fleet?

The sheer number of times we've had mechanical issues is wild and completely unacceptable.

I know BPS is a complicated school system to provide bus services for, but I also believe that we can do better.

Right now, BPS transportation is failing us, and I welcome your perspectives at this hearing today.

Thank you for your time.

Great job, Lori.

Thank you.

Everybody needs to model Lori's behavior.

Up next is Katie.

Hi, Katie.

Hi, um, my name's Kate Wright.

I am a resident of Hyde Park, and my son has an IEP that requires door-to-door transportation as well as a bus monitor because he's vulnerable to bullying.

Um I have documented records dating back to 2022 until early last year when I pulled him off of uh the bus because he could he was no longer safe.

Um he hadn't been safe the entire time, and we went back and forth on driving him to and from school.

But um, this is an ongoing issue where his IEP is not being met, and um uh he is I am physically disabled, and I've been driving him to and from school, which takes a lot of energy that I don't have.

Um to get him safely to and from school.

Um, and at this point, uh I've given up on the ability of Transdev to safely transport him.

Um, but I am hoping that we can come up with something that is gonna be able to um to get him safely to and from school.

It's been across multiple buses, staff, multiple school years.

He's been physically harmed, he's been verbally verbally targeted.

He's had belongings and food taken.

Um it's not a one-time issue.

And because his IEP requires this, I believe that you know it should be taken seriously, but a lot of times he's been on buses for months with no monitors.

Um, and I just want to ensure the bus monitors are trained and accountable because what happened was uh only at the most severe bullying when he was physically assaulted uh was a monitor even changed.

There was no discipline, it was just they changed out the monitor, which meant that another bus was given a monitor that was ineffective.

And I appreciate your time and you calling this hearing uh to be able to hear about families like ours.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kate.

Um up next Regina.

I'm here.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Dale.

Buenos días.

Um my name is Eugenia Rojas.

I am the mother of a first grader and a third grader.

Um we're residents of Rothendale.

Um I'm here um, you know, as a mom, but also as a um transportation um advocate representing a bigger community.

Um families, we established a partnership with Dan Rothengard um a few years ago with the idea of being part of the solution by providing the users um and family experience, which um currently isn't systematically um documented documented within the metrics of um BPS transportation, and um we've been trying to ask them to find a way to um introduce um systematic feedback uh service so that a transportation can include that within their metrics and report, in addition to you know what the Zoom app um seems to be a providing.

Um I want to share that regular bus lays have a strained.

Um we actually have to plan potential carpool rides for the week um on Sundays to other families and my family touch base through WhatsApp, and um, you know, we start um organizing potential carpal rides in case the bus runs late or doesn't show up in time.

Um, kids do not like to be late to school.

Um there are multiple reasons, but um, you know, the academic engagement starts early in the morning, and they like to be there.

We need smooth mornings to get to work or to our day appointments and commitments.

Many times we're sort of like navigating who can stay behind to wait for the bus or um who can ride the kids um year after year.

We have to navigate this.

Um so the question we have is when will the system become reliable?

We have seen improvements in terms of communications from the Zoom app.

However, these communications are not always conclusive.

We might get a notification about it a bus being uncovered.

Yes.

The time has up, so if you have 30 more, you know, 10 more seconds.

Yeah, I'm all I'm wrapping up.

Thank you.

But uh we think there's still an opportunity for um communications.

We're so tired, opting out is not really an option for many of us.

Just this morning our route around 40 to 44 minutes late.

Thank you.

Okay, up next.

Cheryl.

Cheryl, I just want to know for the record that we have been joined by Counselor Peppain as well as Counselor Fitzgerald.

Um, and after public testimony, if you guys are interested, you're more than welcome to do a statement.

All right.

Cheryl.

Always great to see you.

Always a pleasure.

Who's that?

That is Cheryl.

Cheryl Buckman, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

You got two minutes.

You're pro in this, so I expect you to handle it.

My name is Cheryl Buckman, lifelong resident of South Boston.

Apparently, at the Dever in Dorchester, and a BPS parent to a seventh grade at the Root Batson Academy.

I'm here because the current state of BPS transportation is not a logistical hiccup.

It's a systemic failure, compromising the safety and stability of our families.

For a student navigating autism, ADHD and anxiety, consistency is a necessity, not a luxury.

When a bus is late, skips a stop, or fails to show up, it destroys the stability required for my son to settle in and learn.

This year the failures have reached a total breaking point.

I have frequently been forced to pay for lifts just to get my son to and from school.

Recently, while I was sidelined by surgery, my son's father had to take him by a ride share because the bus made an unexpected detoured stop in East Boston.

This didn't just make my son late for school.

It made his father a half an hour late for work.

When BPS fails, the financial and professional burden falls entirely on us parents.

Beyond the logistics, there are matters of safety.

My son's bus this year was involved in two separate minor accidents this year.

While the children weren't physically hurt um hurt, they were left visibly shaken.

No parent should have to wonder if their child's bus is if their child is safe the moment that they step onto a yellow bus.

I have recorded these delays in out of pocket cost, and I'm calling on the city council to conduct a full independent audit of the transportation department to identify exactly where these breakdowns occur.

Mandate a real-time communication protocol so parents are notified immediately of delays at diverted routes.

Establish a reimbursement fund for parents forced to pay for private transportation when BPS fails to provide.

Good job.

Thank you, Cheryl, and thank you for your consistent advocacy.

Over the last six years, you have been such a strong voice.

And so we like to hear it.

So thank you.

And I'm sorry that you're going through all of this.

Always thank you.

Yep.

And I'm gonna switch things up a little bit just because I want to be mindful of the people who are here in person testifying.

Every voice is important, but if you've traveled all the way here, then I do things a little bit different because I want to make accommodations for those folks who are in person.

While you're sitting in the lap of luxury at home in your Zoom, you're gonna wait one second longer.

So I'm gonna move on to in person.

Um we have Marie Francis Rivera.

Um you are next in person, right over there.

Yeah.

And thank you for being here.

Um, and the person who's up next on Zoom is Mildred, so thank you for your grace and for your patience.

We're moving on to public testimony indoor.

Okay.

Great.

I just start whenever.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Dominator.

Okay, good morning.

Hello, thank you.

Hi Dan, how are you doing?

Uh, my name is Marie Francis.

I'm a BPS mom.

I'm an independent consultant.

I'm also an artist, so thank you so much for the opportunity to speak.

I want to start out by saying that I'm just really grateful and thankful and proud that my child is a BPS student.

So I wanted to start out with that.

Um, I have a lot of respect for everybody doing this work day in, day out.

And that's part of the reason why I'm here because this year in particular, the transportation challenges have been unlike anything we've experienced before.

This morning, the bus was 45 minutes late, so we have um fresh off the presses.

Um, and I and my child have been in BPS for five years and three years relying on the morning and the afternoon buses.

Um, and this year has just been frequent delays, and although transportation sounds like a logistical issue, it's a learning issue, it's a family stability issue, and it's a school climate issue.

Um, this year, both the morning and the afternoon service has been, I've been saying, reliably unreliable.

Uh, when buses arrive late or they don't arrive at all, the students start their day already interrupted, they miss instructional time, they arrive stressed out, um, they're forced to catch up even before the day starts.

Um, at the end of the day, the schools are holding students, there's no pre-planned programming.

I mean, it puts additional strain on already stretched staff, and the kids are really um in uncertainty, wondering who's gonna pick them up at the end of the day.

Um, this is becoming very unsustainable.

Um, for example, a small group of us, three families spend every Sunday night coordinating our schedules so that we have morning and afternoon pickups covered in case and when and if the bus doesn't show up.

Um, so we're essentially building our own backup transportation system to get our kids to and from school.

Um, this affects our ability to work as a small business owner and maintain stability in our households.

Uh, I share this not to place blame, but just to highlight the urgency of what's happening and for us to all work together to get to the bottom of um all of these destructions.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Two minutes.

All right, thank you for that.

And if there's anyone here else uh signed up for in-person, make sure you uh make it known.

All right, so we're gonna move on back to um Zoom.

Mildred Lewis, good morning.

Good morning.

Hi, my name is Mildred Lewis.

I am mother to two children here in BPS public schools.

I'm a social worker who has served in Boston for the past 10 years from babies to our elderly.

My youngest, my oldest goes to school at Horace Man School for the hard of hearing and death.

Formerly in Alston, now in Charlestown.

While my youngest is here locally in Dorchester.

Mind you, Horace Mann is the only school where siblings can't go to the same school.

Like she couldn't go to the Charles, my youngest and my oldest kid go to the same school together.

Okay, that's one issue.

However, the morning failures for my deaf, hard of hearing child affects the education of the second.

How and why?

Too many times I have sent proof and screenshots of actual pickup times.

That's only on one phone.

That's not even on two phones, not even for the full school year.

There are a plethora of days where I have to wake up at 5 30 in the morning to see if there is going to be transportation.

Nine times out of 10, there is a delay.

Is there a notification sent out?

No.

Not unless a parent call to transportation.

Then they'll send out a notification.

By that time, it's already time to pick up and get to get the other child ready for school.

So if one child is late, the ripple effect is damaging.

There has been the failure of loss of equipment of bus monitors not understanding that there is a difference between hearing aids and cochlears.

That no, you cannot just throw away a hearing aid.

It is not easily replaceable.

There is the uh loss of time as the parents have talked about it regarding employment.

Because when the ripple effect happens, I now have to take two children to two different directions.

Morning traffic, then get to work.

So as a person with chronic illness, this also impacts my PTO and actually my time to actually take care of myself.

And I haven't, which is why my my health is now worse.

I've asked many times, why can't schools request backup buses if you know a whole school bus is not gonna be there for a child's route?

Why aren't students with special needs guaranteed transportation as part of our rights to education?

All right, we're almost done.

Why is it when I communicate to the bus driver the needs of the house that they're not met?

Thank you.

If we're meant to work together for a child's good, can we please do it?

Yep.

Thank you, Mildred.

Thank you.

And I'm sorry.

All right.

I believe that was all for public testimony via Zoom.

Or now okay.

If you are tuning in to this award-winning episode of BPS transportation, and you want to testify, make sure that you do.

Um sign up.

All right, so I want to um you there's a Danielle drinkman.

All right, yeah.

We hi, sorry, I just got the invite.

Um, thank you for holding this today.

Very much appreciate it.

I apologize, I'm not as organized as some of the other speakers.

I wasn't planning to talk.

Um, but I was really moved after the March 24th meeting, where I was just left with the feeling that not enough is being done to fix the reliability of the bus.

From that meeting from the 24th today, my daughter's bus has been canceled or more than 40 minutes late, 43% of the time.

So that's pretty extreme.

Um the safety concern that hasn't even been brought up yet.

That bus says my daughter didn't get on it.

I have not received an absentee call, I've not received a late call.

So right now, my daughter's unaccounted for.

I was there to put her on the bus, so I know she got on the bus.

I'm fairly confident she got off and got in school.

But I can't imagine if I was a parent that didn't have the flexibility to wait and make sure my kid got on the bus, that there's no tracking of her right now.

That there's parents that just have to let their kids go to the corner and hope they make it on the bus that said it was 26 minutes late, end up being 45 minutes late, and through all of that, because it's less than an hour late.

I think that's gonna be counted as a success from the point of view of the bus.

And it's not.

This is not success.

Having to drive in all the time, having to be late to work an hour all the time is not successful, and it's why families aren't staying in the city.

You know, I get asked constantly when are you moving to the suburbs?

And it gets really hard to defend that when I don't have a bus to take my kid to school half the time.

I've done half the pickups this over the last week.

And I understand data.

I was a math and econ major.

But when a single route is, I think the conservative end number we've gotten is something like a 20% failure rate when my experience is that it's much more than that.

If a single route, a very vocal route is experiencing that, one, I don't believe it's just us.

We've heard from other roots, it's not just us.

And two, that hits the there's some sort of systematic issue that's not being addressed.

You cannot look at 2%, 1% over an entire system and say, how are we big picture gonna fix this?

No, you need to look at the routes that are constantly failing and ask why is that and how is that then extending to the other ones?

In our situation, it seems to be largely an issue with the bus.

That bus does not work, it is a lemon, it needs to be replaced.

That seems like a simple fix that then that would free up the backup buses to then get the other schools.

Thank you.

This is my guess because there's not transparency into what the issue is and why we're so consistently an issue and why nothing's being done to fix that.

Thank you.

And finish that thoughts and then that's it.

I was just gonna say, and you know, right now the threshold I think is an hour is when they consider it late.

It's only a six hour school day.

That is way too long for kids to be missing.

And that hour delay is supposed to come with a $500 penalty from the news article recently.

That's 1.7 million that we should have already gotten back for penalty and fees that I don't think is being collected.

Thank you.

There's that too.

Thank you, Danielle.

Thank you.

And and for those who are tuning in, I want to acknowledge that public testimony is one of the most challenging things to facilitate because people come here with so much to unpack.

And the fact that we only have two minutes for it, I think is a big challenge.

And so I wanna thank everyone for their patience as we navigate uh balancing voice.

And so uh thank you for those who showed up to speak.

Um, this is what we're here to do is to listen.

And so, Counselor Murphy, as the lead sponsor, are you interested in reading some of these into the record?

If you would like let me, yes, thank you.

And how many do we have?

Um, there's I think six, but I'll read like why don't you give me three and I'll read three.

Okay.

That way I would like this be once.

Thank you.

You move faster than me.

So thank you to those who came in person, those who got the link and zoomed in, and many reached out and asked if we would read their testimony into the record.

So, hey everyone, remember my post about the bus that showed up hours late.

The bus hasn't had an assigned driver in weeks.

There are two wheelchair students, one student who needs medical care at a designated time, and one student has limited communication.

That bus still has not arrived at Fenway High School.

The current time is 6 p.m.

Dismissal is at 3 30.

And apparently the bus just left the free port yard.

The hey BPS, a bus still hasn't picked up a door-to-door special needs student.

One is in a wheelchair, it is now 6 02.

So that was two separate days at Fenway High.

Mara sent in her testimony yesterday, and her opening sentence was the irony is not lost on me that as I finish writing this while standing with my three three children waiting for a seriously delayed bus.

They already know they are missing breakfast at school today and will not arrive in time for the start of the school day.

So as she was typing her testimony for us yesterday, her kids were all waiting at the school bus.

And it's been said many times, but as a parent and a former teacher, the morning time I would say is the most important part of the day for community building and just setting yourself up for a good day.

So it's it's so important for all of our kids, especially those who have you know, um, IEPs that are requiring them services, many of those services that do come in in the morning and they miss it.

So imagine waking up to an alert like the one above, a little disruptive but manageable, especially especially if you work from home and can tell your children not to walk to the bus stop yet.

So I won't read this whole one right now, but I think the message that I'm hearing loud and clear and have for years is that those who are here today often preface it as saying, I am privileged.

I may be able to be on a group chat or have friends or neighbors or have the ability to be late or share the responsibility with my husband or a neighbor.

So many students, so I do often tell parents to please raise your concerns because you're lifting the voices.

This is an equity issue of so many families.

So no, I want to be, I want to know that I we'll read one more parsimony.

Thank you for reaching out.

I'm writing in hopes that you may assist in getting us parents some answers regarding the consistently late bus for the Neponset area students.

Bus 023 is late at least three days a week, sometimes more.

This bus is not five or ten minutes late.

Today it was one hour and eighteen minutes late for pickup.

This is completely unacceptable and places undue stress and inconvenience on both the parents and the students.

I have reached out to the transportation department, and they are very responsive in explaining why the driver was late, but it doesn't offer a solution.

My fifth grader has resorted to taking the train with their older brother and a few friends, but I don't always feel comfortable doing that.

My name is Carol Grassia.

I'm the mother of Amelia, who is an 11th grade student who recently transferred to Charlestown High School, and she has door-to-door transportation.

My biggest complaint this year is the inconsistency of the bus.

Earlier in the school year, there were mornings with late or even no bus at all, and at one point transportation said that drivers were out on training.

It doesn't make sense to me to have drivers completing training during the school year.

There were also many afternoons with no drivers in the afternoon, forcing either myself or my husband to drive across the city to pick up our daughter.

Just last week, the regular driver of my daughter's bus was out for two days, and her stop was skipped altogether, forcing us to drive her to Charlestown.

Thank you to the city counselors for shedding on this issue.

Our family has the capability to get our daughter to school, but I know there are many other students that don't have that luxury.

Thank you.

All right, so I'm just going to read the testimony.

I will not add any additional.

I'll just focus.

Um, just for the record, it is a it is a written testimony, and it should uh reflect the person's voice here.

So this is written testimony on hearing on chronic school bus delays from Ramsey to her.

Um, Aaron Ramsey, excuse me, to whom it may concern.

I'm a Rosendale resident and a proud BPS parent of three children at the Rafael Hernandez School grades K2, third, and fifth this year.

Our oldest daughter has been taking the school bus since her first day of kindergarten, seven years ago now.

Since that time, BPS transportation has consistently been the most frustrating and disappointing part of our experience as a BPS family.

I'm writing today to voice my support for the concerns being raised in this hearing and to ask for further investigation into the following issues.

Since the return from February break on 20 uh actually 2025, our children's school bus has been completely uncovered for over one hour delayed on seven individual occurrences, which comes out to over 15% of scheduled rides.

This data point doesn't even include the other instances of less severe delays, untractable buses, or fault communication from the Zoom app.

Behind each of these disruptions are families scrambling to cover for transportation failures.

We have tried to be patient, but year after year, we receive apologies and various versions of justifications without any real meaningful change.

Where is accountability here?

We recently learned that the district had the ability to find TransVez $500 for each instance of no show or significantly delayed buses.

Why is that not happening?

In a time of budget cuts, that's almost two million dollars left on the table that could otherwise be serving our students.

Families are missing work, juggling other child care arrangements, and otherwise flexing their lives around a lack of reliability for something our peers and other districts take for granted.

If the district won't take the money, shouldn't we at least be compensating the parents who are the ones bearing the brunt of the failures here, especially those who are most impacted, i.e.

lost wages, missing work.

We have long been asking transportation to include a data point in their evaluation metrics that captures the family experience of having students on the bus.

Yet we have seen no meaningful change here.

This is not a meaningful data point, but timeliness is important.

But the data captured by the district, as we understand, it doesn't capture the nuance, i.e., how long have we had to wait when we get when we call the hotline for information, when a bus isn't tracking, being told a bus is uncovered, only to see that it's actually on the way with short notice.

Conflicting reports about buses being given to families and school administrators, etc.

We are eager to uh partner with uh the transportation department to improve services for all kids across the district, not only our own, and we would like to be allies through this process.

Yet we need to see accountability when the system continues to fail our kids, especially those who are most vulnerable.

Thank you for your consideration and attentiveness to this matter.

Respectfully, Erin Ransom to her of Rosendale residents.

Okay, we have two more.

This is from Rebecca McGee.

She's a teacher of the deaf at the Deaf Horror Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

Uh written testimony regarding emergency hearing on Docket 0374 for the record.

Dear Chairman and members of the committee, I'm an elementary teacher at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

I am writing to provide testimony regarding the systemic transportation failures currently depriving our students of their legal right to a free appropriate public education.

For our students, a school bus delay isn't just an inconvenience.

It is a denial of access.

At Horace Man, the classroom is a specialized language rich environment that many of our students cannot access anywhere else.

When a student misses the morning ASL announcement to go to class, they aren't just missing a worksheet, they're missing hours of critical communication and specialized instruction that cannot be quote unquote made up without dedicated intervention.

Under individuals with disabilities education act, transportation is a mandated quote unquote related service.

When the transportation fails, the district fails to provide a free appropriate public education.

The current infrastructure places an impossible burden on families.

Last month, one of my students was left waiting for the bus that arrived hours after it was promised.

And at first, the Zoom app provided no data.

The mother called the district Spanish language line repeatedly, but no one answered.

The student began waiting at 5 a.m.

for his 6 p.m.

pickup.

By 6 30, the app predicted a 7 15 a.m.

pickup.

Because the parents had to leave for work, the student continued to wait alone.

They eventually went inside cold and discouraged.

By 9 15, three and a half hours after the initial wait began, and two hours after the bus was promised, the bus finally arrived.

Being deaf, the student could not hear a honk, and no attempt was made to communicate with them otherwise.

They missed an entire day of specialized instruction because, quote unquote, the system simply didn't show up for them.

This also sends a mixed message to our students and families about the importance and value of school.

We need these kids here every day.

It is a key goal of Boston Public Schools, the Horace Mann School, and every teacher across the city.

But we can't do it without the system showing up, literally for our students.

Our time and energy should be spent on instruction, not tracking down transportation to get the students' the students the services they need and are legally entitled to.

As you deliberate on Docket 0374, I urge the council to demand the following.

This is when we're all gonna take notes, y'all.

The language access accountability, immediate, 100% staffing for multilingual transportation lines during all active transit hours.

A parent's primary language should never be a barrier to their child's access to school or safety.

Number two, app reliability, a formal audit of the Zoom app's real-time data.

We must end the practice of quote unquote turning off the tracking for troublesome or delayed routes.

Families need a system that communicates real-time information to make decisions to get their children to school.

Third, automatic credits.

Families, and I believe they do get some sort of credit, but we need this to be formalized.

Families should be reimbursed or credited for Uber slash Lyft rides when they show the dedication to getting their child to school that the city has not.

Sorry, I went off script for a quick second, but I know too.

Um back.

This is the last one.

And then we're gonna move on to the uh administration.

And two more people logged in.

Okay, dear this is from Lauren Greenberger.

Dear Boston Public School Transportation Leadership and City officials.

We are writing as Boston Public School parents to formally escalate ongoing and unresolved transportation and communication failures that continue to disrupt our students' ability to get to and from school safely and reliably.

Despite repeated outreach and months of requests, these issues persist and have been placed an unsustainable burden on families and schools.

One bus B150 tracking system failures technology and drivers dependent.

The morning bus tracker for our route has been turned off or non-functional for approximately four months on a regular basis, despite repeated requests for it to be enabled.

Families have been told that the tracker could not be turned on, yet it remains unavailable or unreliable.

We understand that the tracking system relies on driver-issued tablets, and when those tablains malfunction or fail to connect, drivers have no alternative methods to activate or display tracking.

This creates a system that is both technology dependent and driven and driver-dependent with no backup protocol when devices fail.

As a result, families are left without visibility even when buses are running.

This lack of reliable tracking makes it extremely difficult for families to plan safely, particularly during early morning hours and inclement weather.

Two, afternoon bus 487, failures and holiday disruptions.

This is this happened throughout the month of December.

Families experience repeated afternoon transportation failures, including multiple days when no afternoon bus was provided at all.

On several occasions, families were informed only through phone calls from their school that there would be no afternoon bus service.

During these incidents, no push notifications were sent or received through the Zoom app, leaving families without timely or official transportation updates.

School force to step in to fill communication gaps, and that should have been handled by the transportation system.

These failures were especially common in the days before and after school holidays, resulting in last-minute dismissal changes, families scrambling to arrange pickups with little notice, students experiencing confusion, stress, and uncertainty at the end of the school day.

Three, inconsistent push notifications.

The notifications through the Zoom app are inconsistent and unreliable.

Some families receive alerts while others do not, even when enrolled and using the same system.

As seen in December, critical cancellations and delays were not communicated through the app at all, undermining confidence in the platform and leaving families without essential information.

Four, parent-led coordination is not sustainable.

Due to these ongoing failures, parents created a parent-led WhatsApp group to coordinate morning drop-offs and afternoon pickups.

Sharing real-time updates and alerts one another when buses are delayed or do not arrive.

While this has helped families provide one support one another, it is demanding stressful and unsustainable.

It requires monitoring and emotional labor from parents and places the responsibilities on families to compensate for systemic failures in transportation and communication.

This burden impacts both caregivers and students and should not be necessary to ensure children get to and from school safely.

Collectively, these these issues point out to systemic breakdowns in transportation technology, communication protocols, and operational reliability.

Families have raised these concerns repeatedly through appropriate channels, yet meaningful improvements have not occurred.

We are requesting the following a consistently functioning bus tracking system with backup protocols when tablets fail, immediate and reliable activation of tracking for acclaimable routes, equitable and dependable delivery of push notifications to all enrolled families, clear communication protocols when service disruptions occur, including redundancy when technology fails, transportation, transparent contingency planning for known high risk periods such as holidays, a clear point of accountability and timeline for corrective action.

Boston families depend on safe, predictable, and transparent transportation systems.

And so thank you.

Thank you for being here.

We have just gone through public testimony, and for those who are here, normally we have a community panel, and the community panel has an opportunity to engage with my council colleagues.

We're doing things a little bit different, leading with public testimony.

There isn't a time for us to go back and forth with community, so therefore we're using our time differently in this instance.

Just for those folks who are tuning in, this is definitely being done differently, and that is why, because we want to make sure that the people get heard.

Yamali and Jennifer.

And I also want to note that we have been joined by counselor Flynn.

And after these next two, we're going to move into the administration panel.

Yamali and Jennifer.

I think they're just while we wait for the next person, just to prep the administration is, you know, we'd love to.

Um if you could incorporate some responses to what you heard, just because in the I in the spirit of moving with a solution-focused hearing, I like to start brainstorming on what you need from us to execute.

Okay, just all right.

Jennifer.

Hello, my name is Jennifer Ward.

I'm a parent of two BPS students.

I am the SPC SPED PAC representative and a school site council member at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester, which has the largest autism student in Boston.

A large percentage of our specialized education students rely on door-to-tour transportation.

At our SSC meeting last night, we discussed the fact that our school is missing the DESI benchmark for attendance, and our percentage of chronically absent students is increasing.

Transportation is one contributor to this problem.

School personnel confirmed this morning that this has been the worst year for transportation.

Lately, every day there is at least one bus that does not show up, affecting many students per day.

We know that the district has data.

What I am not hearing are solutions.

Transdev is not adequately planning to have a sufficient number of substitute drivers or backup buses when buses break down.

We need real solutions when transdev fails to provide contracted services.

Many parents are relying on Uber to get their children to school, and this has become financially unsustainable.

In the old days, we had books of taxi vouchers that we could use immediately.

This money could be devoted to providing taxi vouchers or Uber credits to families who must rely on these means to get their children to school.

Thank you very much for holding this testimony.

Thank you, Jennifer.

And Yamali.

No.

Okay.

All right.

Well, moving on.

Um, and I before we do, one thing that I want to add that I did not hear I know they talked about the multi-lingual support for native language speakers.

I also want to note for the record that we have folks who are undocumented, and there has been some concerns around how they apply for reimbursements.

So just would like to hear how we're dealing with that issue.

All right.

So the administration, you have the goal is um, and I'm we're gonna do I'm gonna give my colleagues the first just so that everybody prepares themselves for this round.

The first round, I'm gonna allow each colleague to ask first.

I'm gonna give you seven minutes for your first round.

The second round, if your light is on, you're gonna get five minutes.

Okay, just so that we prepare ourselves so that you use your time wisely with the administration.

Okay, first round seven minutes, second round five.

Okay.

But the second round is just if you have your lights on, you go.

All right, everybody got it?

Okay.

All right, administration, you have 20 minutes.

Thank you, counselor.

Uh my name is Dan Rosengard.

I'm the executive director of BPS Transportation, joined here today by uh Deputy Director Jackie Hayes.

Just want to start by thanking everyone for the opportunity to be here today.

This is, I think, a really important opportunity to continue this conversation around school transportation in Boston.

And particularly I want to thank you know those parents and families who shared their testimony today.

We really look for every opportunity we can to hear feedback directly from families, even when that feedback is hard to hear.

And I'm just really appreciative of and humbled by the folks who shared their experiences today.

Um we do have a brief presentation today.

It will definitely not run the full 20 minutes.

Um you know, aim to keep it to 10 or fewer, but we want to provide some context on our operation, our recent performance and challenges, and also I'm gonna do my best to respond to many of the points raised in public testimony throughout, but please certainly any that I miss.

Let's make sure we talk about those as well.

Uh and then after we really look forward to any questions that you all have and the chance to discuss further.

So if we jump to um a couple slides up.

I think maybe I have the ability to do that also.

Yep, great.

Um, so every school day, approximately 625 buses are on the road, transporting approximately 19,000 Boston students to and from school.

These students rely on the bus to make sure they're on time for breakfast, make sure they aren't missing time in the classroom, and to get to sports games, field trips, and extracurriculars.

Transportation must be safe, it must be reliable and on time, and it must be cost effective.

Our team works incredibly hard to provide the best possible service for students, families and schools, and I want to take this opportunity at the beginning to highlight the ways in which those families can reach us.

Families can reach out to our customer service team through our hotline.

The number is 617 6359520.

They can email us at schoolbus at bostonpublicschools.org, and they can submit a ticket on our support portal, and the link is uh on the slides and on our website.

Uh last year we introduced the Zoom technology, which sits at the heart of our operation.

Every bus is equipped with a tablet that provides the driver with GPS directions and allows them to mark students as picked up and dropped off at each stop along the route.

And we strongly encourage all families to download the Zoom app to view their students' bus assignment, to track rides in real time, to receive automated ETAs in the case of delays, to receive alerts when the bus is arriving, when their student is picked up and dropped off.

Zoom, as well as our hotline, is available in all of the BPS languages.

And over the past several years, efforts such as Zoom and the ridership procedure have allowed us to begin right sizing the transportation operation for the first time in many years.

We've reduced the number of daily routes by about 3% compared to last year, this year.

That has led to increased efficiencies that have meant both improved on time performance and cost efficiencies to reduce spending on transportation and get money back in the classroom.

And Zoom notifications can be personalized by each person on their phone.

And if you're having any issues with that and with receiving alerts, please do call into our hotline and our team can support.

On time performance measures the proportion of buses that arrive to school on time each day, it's one of the primary metrics that we use to evaluate our performance.

I do want to make sure to address one of the points raised in public testimony.

When we calculate on time performance, any bus that arrives after the start of the school day is counted as late.

So those buses that are late but not an hour late are absolutely counted as negative in the on time performance.

An hour late is an additional cutoff for what we call a blown trip, which has kind of further severity and consequences attached to it, if you will.

At the start of this school year, on time performance was the highest on record for BPS in both the mornings and afternoon.

Those high levels continued throughout the fall.

We saw a decline in January and February as streets and traffic were impacted by the two historic storms that hit Boston this winter.

And so far in March, OTP has returned to high levels, averaging 93% in the morning and 88% in the afternoon for March.

Those are again, you know, historically high levels compared to where we have been in the past.

And in a system that has really failed students for far too long, you know, the progress that we've seen in increasing OTP over the past several years has been hard won and has led to the strongest bus performance on record for BPS.

And at the same time, we absolutely know that the job is not complete, and this is not nearly enough.

Even at that 95% target level, nearly a thousand students would be arriving late to school every day.

And if you are a student on one of the buses that is consistently arriving late, the system is failing you, whether OTP is 95% or 99%.

And I think we heard really powerful testimony from many of those families today, and I know that every time I hear one of those stories, it's a it's a powerful reminder of the importance of the work.

So again, thank you to everyone who shared.

And this I think is you know really gonna speak to some of the challenges that we heard about from many of the families today.

So the two charts on the slide here, and I apologize, apologize that they're a little small, I'm sure, for folks looking at it on the TV, but these charts show the percentage of scheduled trips which have been uncovered, which means that there was not a driver or a vehicle available at the scheduled time by month throughout the school year for the morning and afternoon over the past three years.

Uncovered trips can be caused by a number of factors.

These include driver shortages, absenteeism, mechanical failures with our buses, or incidents along the route, which can prevent a bus from completing their scheduled trip.

When a bus is uncovered, we communicate that information to impacted families in schools right away through a phone call to schools and a push notification in the Zoom app to families, and we will always work to provide a backup bus to any students who need it.

We will not ever leave a student behind without a bus.

That said, I also absolutely must acknowledge that those covering buses and those backup buses are often significantly late and after you know many families have already taken the time to come up with alternative arrangements.

Also, I think at this point in time, I want to make sure to note in response to a few of the points we heard.

Reimbursement is available for families of students with disabilities who experience disruption in their bus service.

So students who have uh transportation as a related service in their IEP, if they if that family transports their student to and from school on their own because the bus was uncovered or significantly late or some other reason, they are eligible for reimbursement.

Um there's information on our website on how to apply for that.

And counselor Mejia undocumented families also there is a mechanism for them to work with our team to apply for reimbursement there.

So I don't want that to be a barrier to anybody applying for this.

Coming back to the slide and looking at some of the data, over the past uh several years, we have been very successful in keeping uncovered trips to a minimum.

Fewer than 0.2% of scheduled trips were uncovered over the past uh three years.

Starting this past December, however, we have seen a sharp increase in the number of uncovered trips each day.

This is in contrast to other areas of our operation where we have continued to see steady incremental improvements that have continued through this year, and this uptick in uncovered trips really represents a very concerning regression in performance that we have been and are taking very seriously.

Immediately upon you know seeing this trend, uh we began working very closely with our vendor to understand what was happening and what is being done to urgently address it.

We have taken a number of steps already to try to combat this and improve performance.

These include route consolidation to reduce daily demand on the system, increasing driver hiring and training.

Right now there are about 25 drivers in training who should be coming out shortly, and holding our vendor accountable to bringing uh regional leadership on site who have been on site and have are committed to staying on site until we see improvement, particularly in some of the areas of uh the vendor's you know organization and operation where they've been underperforming.

Nonetheless, and certainly in spite of these steps, um, and despite continuing to see high on-time performance and improvement across other areas of our operation, we know that um this is not good enough.

You know, we have seen in March some improvements so far.

On uh uncovered trips in the morning are half what they were the last three months in March, and uncovered trips in the afternoon have returned to those historical levels of 0.2% of scheduled trips being uncovered.

But again, this is this is not enough.

We must continue to not just get back to where we were, but keep raising the bar further for students.

Um we will continue to demand those improvements and we will make sure there's accountability for every trip being covered every day.

Finally, I just want to um also make sure to provide a brief update on athletics transportation.

I know this is a topic that we've talked quite a bit about as well, um, because it has been an area where you know BPS has struggled for so many years.

Um for a long time, nearly 5% of scheduled athletics trips went uncovered each season, and you know, stranding student athletes unable to attend games.

Uh, since making some some really significant operational changes to how this work was uh scheduled and run last winter, we've seen significant improvements in this area.

So far this school year, we've seen almost 100% coverage in this space with just one athletics trip in September that went without coverage.

Nonetheless, you know, also we know that um just covering the trip is not a hundred percent of the way there.

We have to make sure that it is on time and that any service issues are addressed as well.

And then just in closing, you know, I think it's always important.

I always want to come back to why do we do this work and who are we doing it for?

We are here to serve and support the students and families of Boston.

You know, those students rely on the school bus to get them to and from school.

We have to do everything we can to make sure they can rely on it, and we will.

So, with that said, I you know um came in well under 20 minutes and and want to open it up and look forward to any questions that you all have.

Thank you.

All right.

Good job.

And you guys know BPS knows that I don't like PowerPoint presentations, but every once in a while I'll make those exceptions.

Keep them short, like that's good.

Good modeling behavior.

Anna White, make sure you let everybody know.

Because you know what, I'll tell you why.

PowerPoint presentations, they're good because they keep you guys focused.

But I think that when you guys are able to speak from your heart and just really help us understand, then it becomes more human, right?

I think that the issues that we're talking about, you know, are impacting people's lives in ways that I think um requires us to move in this chamber a little bit differently when it comes to unpacking the issue, right?

So I just encourage you to bring your full self.

Okay.

All right.

So you're not gonna say much?

You you don't you don't want to say nothing.

I think when it's okay, it's on.

Um I have been working in transportation for six years since the pandemic.

And I also have kids who take the bus, and I understand very deeply the impact of not being able to know if you're going to be able to get to work on time or be able to be focused when you need to be able to be your best for your work and your job and how hard that is as a parent.

Uh the daily operations of a family are really complicated, and I I don't refer to it that I don't refer to it that way lightly.

I think that this is just one area that reminds me every day of how important it is that we get it right so people don't have to think about the school bus.

The goal is to actually not be something that somebody has to think about every day.

And especially for our students who this is their only option of getting to and from school, and especially for our students with special needs, the testimony talking about that experience of missing the morning meeting or missing those announcements.

I I was an elementary school teacher a long time ago, and I know what it means for kids to be there and start the day right and be part of the community.

And every one of those uh areas of testimony that were shared or heard and are the reason that we're showing up and continuing to try to improve this every single day.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

I know you were slated to speak, but I think it's important.

Thank you.

All right, so and I'm gonna set some some guidance in terms of how we're gonna do this so that there's no confusion.

So each counselor colleague will have seven minutes for questions, and the best way for us to get the answers is to allow you know, let people to complete their thoughts before you move on to the next question.

Um, and just know that you're gonna have a second round.

So if you don't get through it the first time, you'll you'll be here for the second, okay.

So um and you will start with the lead sponsors and um counselor Murphy, you have seven minutes.

Thank you.

Um thank you again to the families who came on or here in person to just share their stories.

That's why I do my job and why, like I said, I filed this hearing order back in February.

Some just specific questions.

Do we have data that's correlating the bus is in the chronic absenteeism?

And could you also answer the different metrics you use?

What is considered a late bus?

It seems like you have different levels of what late is considered.

Yes, counselor.

Um, so we uh did work with the Department of Opportunity Youth earlier this school year to look at exactly your first question on um whether transportation delays and coverage is correlated to absenteeism.

We did not see any significant uh correlation between those two metrics, but I think that demonstrates not that the bus isn't having an impact on families, but that we are shifting the burden of getting the student to school from transportation to families, which is not what we want to do and is not okay.

Right, because I heard you say many times alternative arrangements are made.

Um that doesn't mean that they're waiting for another bus.

It often means they get dropped off at Nana's house or stay home sometimes alone.

So I just want to put that out there.

Yeah, what metrics are we using to consider it late?

Yeah, so um a bus, in order for a bus to be on time in the morning, the bus needs to be there by the before the start of the school day, so before the bell, and in the afternoon, it has to be there by 10 minutes after the bell, which is when buses are scheduled to leave the school.

We also so when we're when the on-time performance numbers that you see on the slides, and basically whenever we talk about that, that's the metric that we're using.

We also track uh percent of buses that are 15 minutes late and percent of buses that are 30 minutes late to help identify not just you know on time, but how many buses are so if a school bus is one minute late, who's tracking?

Like how are you getting that data?

Yeah.

Uh so um through through GPS information coming directly from the bus.

And so within the zoom app, there's you know, each tablet is transmitting GPS information back to you know, back to our system and into and and to families.

Families can actually see this, they can see their whole ride history.

There's also a secondary um GPS telematics unit on the vice on the bus.

It's called a geotab unit, which provides backup information in those cases where the tablet doesn't work.

We're not relying on the secretary in the past to like report it's all digital when the pulls up.

There was a time when schools scanned in or faxed in, these were my late buses for the day, and if we didn't hear from you, we assumed you were all on time.

You know, that is not how we do it now.

So when we have 93% morning percentage, that's 1,330 students who are not getting picked up on time.

And in the afternoon, 88% means 2,280 students every single day are not getting home in time.

I mean, I we could um both both are bad, right?

In the morning, it's interfering with families getting off to work and kids getting to start their day right.

But in the afternoon, especially our oldest students, we hear too often that they're missing work after school.

Sometimes they need to get home to babysit younger siblings.

So, I mean, that's thousands of students every single day, and that's the best we got.

We also were down 800 less students on our buses.

We're at 19,000 riders, is that correct?

And through the few BPS budget hearings we've had so far, 200 million dollar budget for transportation that's 10,526 and 32 cents we're spending per student on a bus.

And thousands of them are not getting reliable or service at all.

So, how do we defend that?

Like, what do we say about that?

No, I think it's um it's it's incredibly important, and this is a system that is underperformed families for basically its entire existence.

And what is our work now?

Our work is not done until you know 100% of those families can rely on the bus.

Um I think our focus over the past you know several years, which is you know the period that that Jackie and I have been here and that that we can really speak to has been on how do we make consistent steady incremental improvements over time?

That change has not come fast enough.

It will never come fast enough.

Turning around a system of this size takes time, and I think our focus will continue to be on how do we make those steady incremental continuous improvements and always make sure we're trending in the right direction.

But absolutely it is the case that it is not it is not fast enough, and there it may not be able to be fast enough.

Is there data on students who have just stopped?

Because I know many families, and as a teacher all those years, many families were assigned a bus but just never took it, so they were dropped off.

How many families have just such little faith in the system that they don't even opt in to the bus that they are legally offered?

We have the ridership procedure has given us more information.

There you go.

So we want to hear you.

Thank you.

The ridership procedure has given us more information about families who are opting out, but at this time we don't also collect why a specific family is opting out, and they do opt out for a variety of reasons.

Some of them, some families do tell us when they send in their opt-out, we decided to walk this year, we're driving this year.

It may is it's anecdotal.

So but we know some families have opted out because they don't trust transportation to be reliable for them, and they've made other alternative arrangements, and that that is also not possible for everyone to do.

Um, so we can't we don't have specific data on what the breakdown is of families who are opting out for which specific reason.

Is that something you were trying to get, or is it just something you know you don't have?

Yeah, I I think it is, and I I think um many of the the families that spoke um talked about the importance of getting some sort of metric on the family experience.

I think you know uh a lot of those families are are part of that group of students at the Hernandez who have been absolutely very disproportionately impacted this year.

We've had a lot of conversations with those families and getting their feedback, and that is absolutely a goal is to figure out what is the right way to get that um kind of to incorporate a metric around family experience.

Um we don't have it yet, but it is a goal.

Thank you, Dan.

We're gonna uh come back to a second round if you have one.

I'm going to go next to Councillor Flynn.

Similarly, you have seven minutes.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um I want to apologize this morning.

I was at the Boston Adult Technical Academy with Superintendent Skipper for a tour and meeting, so I do apologize for being late.

Um thank you for chairing this important um hearing, Council Mejia.

BPS families and students with disabilities have had to endure the uncertainty as to whether their bus would arrive a half hour late, an hour late, or if it would arrive at all, we can't continue to normalize the chronic disruption for our school community, disregard the safety of our children, or even downplay the negative impacts that this has on students.

Boston is a world class city, and our children deserve better.

I think we all agree on that.

Um I read I read in the contract that BPS is able to find transdev for um late arrivals or for not picking students up at all.

Is that give me a little bit of background on that?

Is that accurate?

Yes, Councillor Tacker.

And have have we fined trans dev yes at yet for um being late or not picking students up?

Yeah, counselor, I really appreciate you asking that question.

Um if you if it's okay, I'll just take a minute to kind of speak to it.

Um the I think that the watchword of our work over the last few years has been continuous improvement, taking a system that has not worked and making it a little bit better each year.

I think we restructured the entire con vendor contract to help align incentives and try to make sure to do that.

We have seen significant improvement in many areas over the past few years, and we have had a very, I think, collaborative relationship with Transdev to drive that work.

We saw a regression in coverage in December.

This has not like we have not taken this lately.

This led to immediate kind of escal escalation on our part and our work with transdev to hold them accountable.

They have done a lot of work, they have um committed a lot of resources that weren't here in the past.

However, it has not been enough and it has not been fast enough.

So actually at the end of February, we did uh inform transdev that going forward, you know, despite the OTP being higher than it's ever been, we we will be um assessing liquidated damages for uncovered trips from we haven't done that yet.

Uh we have not prior to that.

That is correct.

We had not previously we have informed them that for March and going forward we will do it.

Okay.

We should be doing that consistently.

We should have been doing that um at the beginning of the contract, in my opinion.

Um let me let me ask a question.

When a BPS bus is picking up students at the school at the at the um end of the day, or even dropping them off the the arm of the bus, you know, the red arm that goes out to tell um vehicles not to drive past that that school bus.

Um is that always operational?

Do we keep track of how many times school bus drivers have reported that the arm is not working?

Uh so each day when both the morning shift and the afternoon shift, before a driver leaves the bus yard, they do something called a circle check where they walk around the bus and identify on a list of um a list of criteria that all the safety equipment on the bus is functional.

If they identify uh non-functional equipment, they have a document that they fill out to give to maintenance.

An issue like the stop arm not functioning is absolutely something that's checked and would be reported to maintenance if it were an issue.

Um and then there's a system for how maintenance would then track and resolve that.

And the so we could look for uh reports specifically of stop arm related issues, um, but we are aware that stop arms, even when deployed are often um not honored.

Right something we're working on.

Yeah, I I think that's an issue that that I actually have been working with counselor uh peppin' on is doing more enforcement of any vehicle that disregards uh the safety of school children and and just goes around um around a school bus when the when the stop arm is down we need we need to do more enforcement with the Boston place something I'm gonna continue to work on.

But I guess my point is have any of these stop any of these buses left the yard when the stop arm wasn't operational?

No.

It's it I'm sorry, that's not data I I have with me today.

Who would I know of?

Um we would have to um inspect the information in the the maintenance system, the maintenance database.

But you know, what as as Jackie said, and and just to make very clear, like if that were identified during the circle check process, you know, that bus would not be sent out.

No, I know that, but I'm saying if if it was known that that stop arm wasn't working, did that bus still leave the yard to do their rounds and and come back and and go back out again and pick the students up, um, at what point did the bus driver um notify BPS that the stop arm was not working?

Was that bus taking off the off the road to get fixed, or did we just let that bus continue its route?

So BPS um would is not part of that that process directly in the moment.

If a driver identifies something like the stop arm not working, it would be reported at that time to dispatch so that they could be assigned what we call backup bus so they could take an alternative bus out instead of the bus that had the issue that was identified.

There's also maintenance staff at the yard, some issues they're able to resolve in real time, and then that bus would be able to leave.

But that is one of the examples of when a backup bus would be used.

Um a bus should not be leaving the yard with any identified safety issues unresolved.

Well, for the record, uh Madam Chair, can I get a my question would be?

My question would be um have has any bus left the school yard um with the stop arm not operational?

Was it noted was it reported properly to BPS?

Um what action did BPS even when it was noticed at schools that the stop arm wasn't working?

What did BPS do when the stop arm wasn't working?

Was it immediately pulled or did it continue their rounds?

That's for the record, and um I'm respectfully asking answers to those.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Flynn.

And don't get alarmed, administration.

I actually have upgraded a public testimony to a community panel.

It's not lost on me that you know we usually have community folks.

So if my colleagues have questions specifically for a community member, please feel free to also utilize this time to do that.

Um and I want to thank you.

You did not uh you you did not sign up for all of this, but I think in the interest of having a full conversation, you know, my colleagues could benefit from hearing directly from parents who are also experiencing um some of these difficulties.

So as we're continuing to think about how we fix it, maybe hearing from you all from parents could be a good part of the the way.

Um so thank you for that.

All right, so I'm gonna go on next to the second, excuse me, the third co-sponsor who is counselor Fitzgerald, then council president uh Braden, followed by Counselor Weber, then Pepang, and then Culpepper.

I'm just giving you the lay of the land so you know when you're on deck and up next.

Counselor Fitzgerald, you have seven minutes.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh, and thank you for being here, guys.

I really do appreciate it.

Uh Dan, do we think this is more because uh when we get the feedback and I've talked to you before, and thank you for always answering the phone and responding appropriately and quickly as you always do, as I'm sure to many of us.

Um you think it's more a systemic issue, or is it sort of the individuals?

When I look on your your graph here about uh the cause by a number of uncovered trips are caused by a number of factors, including driver absenteeism, bus mechanical issues, enhanced safety and compliance procedures that have led to more drivers unavailable to drive.

Um I mean, I understand those are all things, but the driver absenteeism, that's a hard one to control, right?

Because it's just an individual saying, uh I'm I'm sick or I don't feel like working today.

Is it more is that the issue when buses when bus routes are missed, or do you think it's more of the larger system as a whole?

Because from what I've understood, is it's more like, hey, this this individual decided to just bang in two days in a row and that morning, and there's not enough of a heads up, and so you you're left scrambling and transv left scrambling.

Is that do you think that's more of the issues on a day-to-day basis, or is it more of a rooted systemic issue overall?

Yeah, I really appreciate that question, counselor.

I think that I think it's it's both.

I think that when when we look at the on-time performance in Boston and compare it to other peer districts, we see that we compare very favorably for the most part.

Where I think that Boston has some unique challenges is because of all of the various components of the system, the contracts, how the route assignment works, when there are issues, those issues often disproportionately affect the same buses day after day after day.

And that can be really tough for those families where even if you know 93, 94, however many percent of buses are running on time, there are families on buses that are impacted 20 plus times in the year, like we heard from a number of families today.

And I think that that is that is a structural issue that's kind of built into the way that this system operates right now.

Yeah, and I think that tracks, I think a lot of the families that I hear from, it seems to be the same family.

So it would be the same bus route number, same driver, and just potentially someone who's either running some really hard times or is not willing to work as hard as we're expecting them to have worked.

What is the repercussion?

And please add anything else if you would like.

But what is also the repercussion for drivers?

Um like what is the threshold?

I know if I have you have X amount of sick days and I'm going over them, right?

If I'm a teacher, if I'm in any other profession, do we how do we hold these drivers accountable that they can't just continue to bang in one morning and and put uh you know tens of families uh in a in a spiral?

So I I do want to just say first off the the bus drivers who work on the Boston public schools contract work incredibly hard.

They have a really hard job.

They're up at the yards despite whatever the weather may bring, be it a lot of cold or extreme heat or everything in between.

And um and just like all of us, they do periodically need sick time.

They need uh the time with their families.

People have needs, and what we we see, because we are not their employer, so we do not BPS does not directly uh manage or train or uh would not do any of the steps of a discipline process, but when we we do speak with transdev about it extensively to make sure they are doing their part, and the reality is is some of the ways that the the work rules are structured, make it so that when people have normal family obligations, normal human needs to be able to be sick and be out of work and keep you know the people they work with safe, that the structures do not account always correctly for how that impacts the the bigger system in which they are part of.

And that is something that we have been focused on fixing for many years, but those problems developed over many, many years, and negotiating them to different resolution takes a very long time.

Um we are making progress on it, and we've we've seen some real solid progress around how those particularly around like the leave system and how that operates to help make it more reliable for the people on the other side of the leaf who are impacted by the person not being there.

Um but it is something that we focus on and I've been focused on with trans since you know the first day we came in.

Yep.

No, and so I I want to make it clear, no way was I disparaging the work of any of the other uh of the bus drivers, but in some occasions, people can take advantage of the system.

And I guess I was asking if there are particular routes that keep seeing this issue, what are the repercussions to that individual that say, hey, you've now banged an X amount of times over X amount of time, and that is is I mean, what is in the contract that says uh I guess I'm asking what there what is their threshold before it suddenly says, sir, we might have to talk to you or ma'am, we might have to talk to you and you know talk about your your work efficiency here.

Just like for any employer, there are sp specific number of PTO days that you can take in our context, it's a little the the driver contract is a little more nuanced, some are at the discretion of the employees, some at the address discretion of uh need approval.

Um the there are disciplinary systems that track for any um excessive use of that amount of time.

Um do we know the amount of time?

Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's it's it's five PTO days, um, and then but the way the the way the discipline system tracks with that also depends on how they're taken.

at the discretion of the employees some at the address discretion of uh need approval um and the there are disciplinary systems that track for any um excessive use of that amount of time um do we know the amount of time yeah it's yeah it's it's it's it's five PTO days um and then but the the way the the way the discipline system tracks with that also depends on how they're taken um if you call out very late for example too close to a shift right for somebody to quickly be able to cover it that is different although people do have emergencies that happen at the last minute get in a car accident on your way to work you didn't know you were going to be late or miss work um uh but they do look they have systems now to track patterns that might suggest abuse of time off and those systems are um increasingly robust it is also a very large system with about 1300 employees under transdev um so they are increasingly improving their ability to follow the management side contract rights effectively to address when there are issues that that people need coaching or maybe this isn't the right fit for employment for them I also know it takes about 12 weeks for someone to become a driver who has not been a driver before so if there isn't if somebody is leaving it's a long time to bring new drivers online.

Do we have do we have a bench of drivers?

Yep there are uh we have a group of standby drivers it's over a hundred drivers who are available to help cover routes on a given day um there have been some headwinds buffeting the number of drivers that we have um which have unexpectedly reduced the number of drivers and we are continuing to um work with Transdev to to train new drivers to fill those slots to help um bolster back up the available workforce great thank you so much for your time thank you chair absolutely and again if you are still have outstanding questions you have a second round um just so note for the record don't feel rushed you've got another seven five minutes coming your way so I'm gonna try to see if this works and then counselor President uh Braden you have seven minutes thank you madam chair and good morning thank you for being here I really truly appreciate we've talked many times Daniel um appreciate how difficult this situation is for everyone concerned um I want to really raise elevate the concerns I have about uh the Edison um I know it's uh it's a late dismiss it's a three o'clock dismissal at the Edison um and uh I I hear regularly like I they the folks over there have me on speed dial so I know I know what's going on on a daily basis but um one of the things that they have compiled data they there's one nine days straight of uncovered buses between February 4th and February 25th on covered buses um between December 8th and March 30th there were 27 uncovered incidents on 61 school days um and the uncovered rate at the Edison is 3.5% that means the bus just doesn't turn up ever the uncovered rate district wide is 1.6% so that's twice as frequently the bus doesn't turn up at the Edison then than this the average across the district so and then the other thing a part of that is that there's a couple of buses in particular the average delay is 36.6 minutes it's a bus that carries 60 students so that's uh the maximum delay is 183 minutes which is three hours I think that's three hours and the on-time uh performance is 14 percent like that's an abysmal performance I know they've actually changed the number on the bus route not B 492 it's been changed to it was B154 but um I I don't know um I know last year in the last school year the performance was much better I think they said that maybe five days out of the whole year that they had a big problem but this year it's almost every week they have issues so and then the other the other school the other bus is uh the HS two 520 average delay is nine minutes but the maximum delay is 132 minutes so that's 30 um 30 that's two two hour delay the problem is then that the staff at the school have a huge problem today was MCAS testing buses were running late students were stressed and you have to come into school get your breakfast and go to go to a room and take a test and then you wonder why kids aren't doing well on tests.

It's so such a sort of hostile environment almost for kids and then kids get very stressed if they're find out that their bus isn't coming in the evening they are crying they're the and the staff don't the staff have to stay late.

And that's after if that's five hours after dismissal.

They get very little notice that a bus has been canceled.

It might be a few minutes that they have to, and then they have to scramble and try and notify parents.

There's no resources to support the students who are left stranded in school.

And there's nowhere to put the kids.

But what is the solution for addressing the issue and what exactly is the problem with the Edison?

Why is it twice as frequent that they have uncovered rates than other than the district average?

Yeah.

No, I I really appreciate that, Counselor, and and thank you for always elevating you know the concerns when you are hearing them because it's very important for us to hear directly what's what's happening and the impact it's having.

I think you know, going back a little bit to to what I was saying in response to one of counselor Fitzgerald's questions, I think the there are a couple different structural challenges within the way that routes are assigned and and drivers bid on work that mean that when there are challenges with coverage like we've seen this year, um those challenges are often disproportionately impacting certain routes and certain buses.

You know, when we do we have more routes that need standby drivers than there are standby drivers available, the way those routes are assigned is through a bidding process.

There um and oftentimes it is the case that for whatever reason, whether it's the hours, the pay assigned with to a route, the geographic location, bus type preference, for whatever reason certain routes are often less desirable in that bidding process.

And so when we're in these periods where we see uncovered routes happening on a frequent basis, it's often the same routes every day that are going not bid on and ending up uncovered.

Um, and so that is why I think that we see you know that disproportionate impact in certain routes or certain schools like the Edison.

You know, I think when kind of speaking to okay, what are we doing?

What is the solution?

I think there's there's the immediate fix, which is making sure that there are enough drivers active and in the system right now that the vehicles are well maintained and ready to go, and that we are not having any uncovered buses right now.

I think that you know we've been taking these escalatory steps with transdev.

I think the the right things are happening.

We are seeing those numbers come down, but we will hold them accountable, like I said, and we are beginning to assess damages in March to make sure that those numbers get to zero right now.

Long term, we have to right-size this system, and we have to make Boston public schools transportation work for all families.

Um the ridership procedure was one step here.

You know, we've seen a reduction of over a thousand students from the bus schedule since implementing that.

These are students who by and large probably weren't riding before and aren't riding now, but they're now not taking up space on the routes.

You know, that has reduced the demand on the system by three percent.

We're projecting kind of a further reduction in system demand of three to four percent next year.

Um, you know, due to the inclusive education, long-term facilities planning, and some of the internal work we're doing.

But I think long term, you know, the fix for this system is how do we make sure every student has a seat close to home and that we're reducing uh reducing the need for transportation across the city and making sure that those students who do need the bus can rely on it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Cal from here.

Thank you.

Um I I do have a question before I move on to my next colleague.

You talked about um the reim holding them accountable in terms of potential fines.

I'm curious.

Have you had an accounting uh mechanism to see how much money parents are putting out of their own pocket, or wages that have been lost?

Who's compensating the you know uh is that gonna bill gonna be passed on to trans dev, or is the district who's who's taken on that charge?

Yeah, I I appreciate that question, counselor.

Um I think that the impact on families is is gonna be so you know different, and there's so many different ways that a family can be impacted on this.

Sometimes it maybe is financial, sometimes it's just time out of their day, the added stress that comes with having to worry about this every day, or you know, WhatsApp with your other families on Sunday night to make a plan for the week.

Um I think that you know, number one thing that we definitely need to do is figure out how do we capture all of that family feedback as a neometric for our operation.

Um I'm not sure I have a specific accounting number for you.

Okay.

I know that you know, one we I don't have it with me, but one number we we could track is how much have families submitted for reimbursement due to transportation service disruptions.

Great.

So Mikey, when it's my turn, I'm gonna ask you to give me uh some sort of uh estimate in terms of as an entrepreneur and as a business person, potentially, and maybe what you've heard from some of the other parents that are your organizing collectively, what that potential dollar amount could look like, so that we can start factoring that into the conversation as well.

So if you can start working on that one, it's my turn, I'm gonna ask you that question.

So I'm preparing you for it.

All right, so I'm gonna go to counselor Weber, then followed by Counselor Bang, and I see that Culpepper has left.

Counselor Weber, you have seven minutes.

Okay, thank you very much, Chair.

Um I you know, in terms of uh missing buses, late buses, I I feel like you know, we we can understand when there's somebody's sick and they they can't make it, but we when there's a pattern at a specific school, and I think you've heard from several counselors about that, like in my district last year, I think it was the JFK and that was a constant issue this year.

The Hernandez uh has just you know, I've heard some uh calls about the curly, but in terms of like where this is happening repeatedly in one school, like what like I guess what are the the patterns that you're seeing that cause that one of the patterns where it's happening frequently at a specific school, because sometimes this is not specific to those schools you've mentioned, but you asked for types of fact patterns.

Yeah, and I guess the alternative is is it's just all unique, you know, each school has a unique problem, or is there something that is you know coming up again and again?

Sorry, I didn't mean to speak over you.

Um so one fact pattern that we're working on with transdev right now is a fact pattern where a driver is out on leave, so they're not going to be at work for a for a certain number of days, but because or they have uh some kind of accommodation where they can't drive a particular part of a route, but the way that that part of the route can be bid out does not allow for consistent coverage.

So it's kind of getting in the weeds, but like that isn't a really common issue where we see a school impacted over and over and over again.

You know, the driver is out or not available for that route, and and transdev knows that, but because of the limitations of how work is assigned, cannot get a consistent driver every day on that route.

And that is a really common fact pattern of a school that's impacted over and over again.

And maybe just to like put a very specific example on that, I think earlier in the year um we were in close communication about a group of families at the Hennigan who had a bus uh route that was being frequently uncovered for a period of time.

You know, that bus route, that driver was um out for a period of time due to, you know, I don't know the specifics, but there was a period of time where that driver was gonna be out during that time that bus had to go up for bid, the standby bid every single day.

It was frequently not selected for whatever reason, you know, this was not a desirable route in that standby bid.

It was uncovered consistently during that period of time.

And then when that driver returned to work, it has returned to working very well.

And so that's kind of again, it's kind of in the weeds, but that is the kind of the type of reason that can lead to these focused targeted issues.

Yeah, and what if you uh I mean, have you to said anything to transdev about this?

You know, um, like I guess what have you told transdev to do in these situations?

Yeah, so I just want to underscore that in that case, like it isn't that the driver did something wrong there.

The they were they had given notice that they would be out.

But what would the problem of what how to solve that is complicated because there's limitations on being the ability to change the way the work is covered because that is dictated by the collective bargaining agreement between trans dev and the bus drivers.

So that's not something that anyone has the opportunity to change and should never change unilaterally because that's in a negotiated agreement between those two parties, and it is something that has come up in bargaining.

The parties have not yet been able to come to a different agreement on how that process will work.

Um as far as on the side of transdev, what we do is what we meet with them frequently, and and the push there is to make sure that they are using all the tools available to them to make sure that they are only granting those types of leads or accommodations under appropriate circumstances consistent with applicable federal Massachusetts law.

Okay, and so under a contract with trans, are there benchmarks for on time and uncovered buses and what are what are those?

Yeah.

Um yep, so under this contract, we've built in uh both performance incentives, so financial incentives for uh set hitting certain on-time benchmarks.

Uh there's incentives associated with hitting uh 92% on time performance on a uh regular basis over the course of a quarter, and uh 95% on time performance.

Um those benchmarks were established because uh 92% was the um the highest that had been hit previously prior to developing this contract um over any extended period of time.

And then there's also uh liquidated damages uh that can be assessed for what's called blown trips, which is any trip which does not receive coverage or runs more than an hour late.

Okay, and so liquidated damages are when we agree to a dollar figure for a violation, I believe.

Do you know what this amount is or it's $500 per instance of a bus running uh uncovered or running more than an hour late?

Okay, and then they're they're not I assume if 92% uh and we're like 93% in the morning and 88% in the afternoon.

We're not they're not meeting the benchmarks.

Not not yet.

And that's they are consistently meeting it in the morning, but not in the afternoons, and so that's you know been one big we are we have seen on time performance in the afternoon this year steadily increasing and higher than we'd seen it in past years, but it's not quite at that benchmark.

Okay, and then I guess I'm just how much are we paying transdev to um each year?

I mean, we're talking about close to 200 million dollar budget for buses.

I assume most of that goes to the drivers and you know, but what are we paying for management of the system?

Yep, so um under the the transdev contract, the yellow bus vendor contract, we've contracted with them to provide uh hiring training, you know, dispatching management, employment of the bus drivers, uh to provide um dispatch safety operations and uh maintenance of all of the school buses, and probably you know some other functions that I'm I'm sure are failing to note right now.

Um certain costs that are driven by the the volume of service that BPS routes and assigns, those costs are largely reimbursable to BPS.

So these are things like driver wages, fuel, uh things that are gonna depend on how many buses we route, and then there is a management fee that goes to transdev for their management of this system and the 1300 employees that work there.

Uh that management fee is uh 21, a little over 21 million dollars for FY26.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Do you want to want to follow up?

No, thank you, Chair.

Okay.

All right, so we're gonna move on now to counselor Piping.

You have the floor.

Thank you, madam chair.

And thank you to BPI transportation for being here every single time I I reach out to Dan or Jackie or Carla.

It's always been a very receptive response and nothing but helpful, despite obviously being in regards to what challenges situation, which is why I'm I'm happy to see Mary Francis here in person and many other district five residents who who I know have speak up who I spoke on up before during public testimony.

Um it's one of the reasons why I've been such a try to be such a strong advocate for BPS transportation, why I'm always reaching out to your office because um I know a lot of my parents in my district do experience if it's either targetedness or drivers running a stop sign, which is where I was able to meet Mary Francis at the corner of Albama and Washington Street in Rosenville.

So it's just there's always strong advocacy regarding BPS transportation.

So I just wanted to start off with saying that.

Um in terms of the question that I wanted to follow up on today.

Counselor, um two of my council colleagues kind of already started it where I've noticed that whenever I get complaints about a bus timing, it's always about the same buses.

That's just the truth.

Um it's it's it's very rare when it's a random bus, or it's especially with the bus that goes to the Hernandez school, and then there's another bus that comes into mine that goes to the Brook school that starts in Hyde Park, then go to the Brook School in Rosendale.

Those are the ones that I consistently find in my emails.

And I know that we've already had conversations about bus drivers taking the time off, or they have BTO, and they're they're great by the way.

I have I not only represent a lot of BPS parents that take the BPS buses, but I also represent a lot of BPS bus or bus drivers that live in my district, and I've been able to hear things from their perspective as well.

So what I wanted to know is when you realize that there is a consistent pattern of buses get into the drop off of pickup locations late, what is the conversation like with trans dev and the bus drivers to figure out hey, what is going on with this bus driver?

Do you need more support?

Is it a bus issue?

Is it because I know that I've heard concerns about also some electric buses not being charged properly, or it's there are a lot of things coming to the conversation.

So I want to know what's the follow-up like, because I know a lot of it is not on your plate immediately.

I know that.

I represent a bus yard too in Reedville, where a lot of the situations happen at the bus yard.

And then with with trans dev, so a lot of things are happening immediately on the ground before it gets to your off to your offices.

Wonder what's the follow-up like amongst all of your departments?

What's the type of communication that you all have?

Yeah, no, I um really appreciate that council that question, counselor, as well as your you know, your advocacy.

Um I want to quickly note just when we're talking about um driver absenteeism, I just want to make sure everyone's on the same page that there are so many different reasons that a driver might be absent, and only one of those reasons is an unexcused absence, right?

There's PTO, there's scheduled training, there's medical leaves, there's so many different things.

And I I think sometimes we talk about this in a way that makes it sound like driver absenteeism is just everyone not showing up to work, and it's you know, that happens sometimes.

Not anyone here necessarily, but um, you know, if and when that happens, it needs to be addressed.

But there, I just want to make sure you know that's not conveyed in any way.

Um, not suggesting that anyone here is.

Um, but then specific to like routes that are consistently um you know, having challenges.

Uh the way that we try to address that is that we have um we have a daily uh we call it a 1030 operations meeting between BPS and Transdev.

At that meeting, we're um we're looking at both overall on-time performance for the day, but also diving in on the routes and the buses that are having these acute issues.

So we have a you know an on-time performance dashboard that we look at together.

One of those things is it highlights the top 10 you know worst performing routes coming out of each bus yard, and that gives us a chance to drill down and say what's happening with each of these, what do we need to do?

And you know, it's one of those things where like every bus that runs on time maybe is alike, every bus that is having challenges is having different challenges.

So it's not one answer, one solution for each route, you know, you have to figure out what is going on with this.

Is it a um you know, a routing challenge?

Is it a vehicle challenge?

Is it something happening with the the driver or the monitor or the students?

You know, there's so many different things, and then we try to collaborate and and problem solve for that.

Okay.

Um that I wanted to flag for you all is what I hear from some parents is by the time they get the notification that the school that they need to go pick up their child at school because there's no coverage, it's sometimes it's like 30 or an hour after the fact that they've already found out from their own child.

Um meaning there is a situation where they're waiting at the school for over an hour before the parent figures out that there's no school bus coverage for that.

Um, I know that that's been something that's been brought up to me.

I wonder um what's the lack, what's what's the timing like when you all figure out if the bus is going to be covered or not?

Um, how do you guys let that know to the school and then eventually how does that get to the parents?

Because I know that's that cause a lot of stress to the parents are just like, hey, where's the bus?

Where's my kid?

Yeah.

Um so at the beginning of each shift, so starting at uh 515 a.m.

each morning and 1230 p.m.

in the afternoon is what's called the standby bid process.

So this is where the routes that do need a substitute driver that day are bid on by standby drivers.

Once that process finishes, which is normally around 6 a.m.

in the morning and about 1 30 p.m.

in the afternoon.

Any buses at that point in time that don't have coverage, we would immediately communicate that to families through a push notification in Zoom and to schools through a phone call.

And then ongoing throughout the shift, we try to stay in close communication with schools and families about any changes.

So you know, those buses that maybe are starting the shift without coverage, dispatch is working to identify, oh, maybe this driver can pick up this route after they finish their scheduled work, okay.

Assign that, then communicate out that okay, this is now covered.

And on the flip side, maybe you know this bus was halfway through its route and then it broke down or got in an accident or whatever happened for you know temporarily we don't have coverage for the next trip.

Let's make sure the school and family knows that while we work on sending a backup bus there.

Before my time ends, I want to just ask a follow-up question in regards to my first question, which is if you see a consistent problem with one of the buses, is there ever a situation where you find a different bus or a different bus driver or work with with the driver with with transdev or the yard to figure out how do we change the the whole setup for that bus route in specific?

Because if we're just waiting for the bus driver to either have a conversation with transdev, I wonder what's the process there.

Yep, so that exact process that that route effectively belongs to that driver for the year.

They've bid on it.

Oh, it's a big process.

So there's an annual bid process, so that is the baseline reality of that route.

So the way that that route could leave that driver is um is very specifically laid out, and um it isn't something that BTS or Transdev can just unilaterally dictate.

It has to be done consistent with that collective bargaining agreement because that route is that drivers.

Do we know if tardy I'm sorry, Council Chair, do we know if tardiness is one of the flags?

Um yes, but tardiness alone would not result in a driver losing their route.

A driver would really not lose their route unless they were probably terminated from the system entirely, or if they were on long term, like if they are out for a long time, then a route can be covered, they could be out for a long time for a variety of reasons, including discipline.

Um but but routes cannot just be taken unilaterally from a driver.

And if the tardiness was due to an identified scheduling issue, meaning the schedule that BPS had created didn't allow it to be on time, then we would make a change.

But there are you know many other reasons a bus could be tardy also.

Okay.

I know my time is up, and I want to thank the chair for allowing me to ask that last question there at the end.

I will continue to have this these conversations with your department, but also with my parents though of my district that are here and have testified.

So just wanted to thank you for holding this space.

Appreciate you all.

Thanks, Council.

Thank you.

Um, and before counselor Culpepper goes, I need to better understand uh the answer that was provided to Councilor Pepang because my assumption is it's like an abusive relationship, right?

Like if you stay in a abusive relationship, you there has to be some sort of at some point you realize that it's no longer healthy, right?

And so I'm just curious if there's been consistent um issues with very specific routes and schools consistently.

At what point does BPS literally put their foot down and say, enough is enough?

What does that look like?

And you could wait until it's my turn to answer, but I need you all to think about that because I don't think that the answer that was provided.

I understand there's some collective bargaining issues, I understand some of those dynamics, but what I am having a hard time understanding is how we can allow people to continue to be late or to disregard or to create more hardship for our families, and that no one is really stepping up to defend our families, and that's kind of like how I'm feeling right now from the answer that I'm sitting with, and I don't think that that is the right answer.

May I respond now?

Sure.

Okay.

Um, I I appreciate you raising that.

And um so I think that yes, we have to operate within the confines of the collective bargaining agreement within the confines of the contract, all of those things we cannot, and nobody can unilaterally ignore any of those.

We have said very clearly, enough is enough.

We cannot continue to have uncovered buses.

We had been seeing consistent steady improvements for the last several years.

It's the first time really in history that we'd seen sustained improvements in BPS transportation.

We are continuing to see that, I think, across the board with our on-time performance.

But starting in December, we did see that regression in coverage.

We you know have worked in collaboration the last few months to make sure that the right steps are being taken to address that.

But we have said very clearly as of the beginning of March, enough is enough.

We will be assessing liquidated damages for the first time, not just under this contract, but under prior contracts as well for continued uncovered buses.

Okay, thank you for that.

And I'm gonna go now to Councilor Culpepper.

Uh just I'm loading for the record that you folks who still have questions, you will have a second round of five minutes, so do not feel cut off.

You will have another chance.

Thank you, madam chair.

So you're telling me I have 12 minutes?

But not in this one sitting.

Okay.

We're dividing it up.

Morning, Dan and Jacqueline.

I wanted to pick up where Councillor Peppin left off regarding the buses not being properly charged.

And so from what I understand, I'm not sure if the buses are not being properly charged.

And my conversation with bus drivers, is that they're so you're purchasing a lot of electric buses, right?

What percentage of the buses are electric and what percentage are still gas?

Um so our buses have three different types of fuel, either electric, diesel, or propane.

Um each of those fuel types, the model years with those specific buses get a different amount of range.

Um for the diesel buses, they get the longest range.

Um there are a variety of model years of the propane type.

The earlier years have a lower range than the later years as the technology improved.

That technology came into the fleet starting around 2016, and then electric are the newest type.

Um the earlier models have a lower range, and the later models they're starting to get longer ranges.

We're still very early in the what's the percentage of the range for the earlier electric buses?

Yep, so the earlier electric buses get um in how so there's a lot of factors here.

It depends how they are driven.

What what tell me the range though?

So they they can get up to a hundred miles in range, but that is not what you often see in reality.

You see closer to 50 miles in range.

Right.

So let me so 50 miles for a bus that has to go 75 to 100 miles for the morning, they'll run out of the charge.

And then they have to be charged for the afternoon.

So uh our our bus routes um I think our our bus routes average uh 60 or fewer miles typically for their entire day.

So if it would be relatively rare for a route to have 75 miles for just the morning, if you know those would primarily be just uh out of district routes going outside the city of Boston, and in those cases, those would not be assigned to an electric bus.

So for the bus that leaves Washington Street by Nubian that goes all the way to Oak Square, how many miles is that?

It would depend on the specific route and the stops along the way, but um all of the buses at Washington Street are a mix of diesel and propane.

Let me get back to my question regarding the electric buses.

So the electro buses, when they run out in the morning, if they're going on a route that's 60 miles and they only have 50 miles, they're gonna run out of electric electricity.

Then you have to bring on another electric bus to fill that route.

Yeah, so no bus would be scheduled for a route that it's not uh you know that it is it can't complete.

But that's what's happening now.

So they complete, let's say they do complete the 60 miles, then they run out of electricity.

What happens for the afternoon if they don't have the electricity?

So there aren't routes with we we don't assign buses, we assign buses to routes.

No, the question is what happens if there's because you do.

I've talked to the bus drivers, and let me just tell you what one of their complaints was.

They said, first of all, they're buying the cheap buses, they're not buying the road royals, they're not buying the bentleys of electric buses, they're buying the plims and the pontics, the the lower level of the buses.

That's the first thing they complained about, and then they said the buses run out of uh the charge for the morning, and so they have to bring on a new bus for the charge for the afternoon.

That's what the bus drivers are telling me.

Because they're the ones that are driving the buses.

My question is what happens in the scenario where a bus runs out of the charge during the morning, what happens for the afternoon?

So I'll just answer that question.

When a bus runs out of fuel, regardless of fuel type, it first off should not happen because before the driver's.

But it does happen.

What happens?

My question is for that afternoon, what happens?

If a bus runs out of fuel and is not able to be fueled midday between afternoon and PM, a different bus would be assigned for the afternoon half of the run.

If that bus were to run out of fuel while it's in its route, it would need to be towed back to the yard.

That happens sometimes across each of our types of fuel.

It is not supposed to happen, but it happens with diesel propane and electric buses.

And part of the way it doesn't happen is because drivers are supposed to check the amount of fuel in a bus before they leave and never leave the yard if they don't have enough fuel to correctly for the business.

And what's the protocol for signing that bus when that bus can't do the afternoon ship?

What's the protocol for signing a bus or the replacement bus?

What's a protocol?

Again, I just want to make sure it's clear that no bus routes are assigned to the city.

No, no, no.

But here's a question what's the protocol when you have to sign on another bus when that morning bus has either run out of electricity or propane, or the charge.

What's the protocol for assigning another bus?

So no bus routes are assigned to buses that can't complete those routes.

Okay.

If a bus is not if a bus is not fueled, when the driver is completing their circle check at the start of the route, the driver should be identifying this bus does not have enough fuel for me to complete the route this morning or afternoon.

They would then report that to dispatch, and dispatch would say, okay, don't take this bus, take this backup business.

But what's the protocol?

Is that the protocol?

So that's the protocol.

That they would say don't take this bus that.

So what's a protocol for determining what bus they would take?

So you just can't say take this bus, what's the protocol for determining what this bus is?

Yep.

So the trans dev maintenance team has what they call a spare list.

Uh they have a list of they provide every day to operations.

These are the backup buses that are available for service today.

Then dispatch, if a driver correctly reports that a bus, their assigned bus cannot be taken out, then dispatch would take one of the buses off the spare list and assign that to them instead.

Does that bus driver then go to use that spare bus, or is there another driver that uses that spare bus?

The first driver would use the spare bus.

So he would leave that bus, then go back to the yard, then use that spare bus.

So he shouldn't have to go back to the yard because he or she never should have left in the first place if the original bus wasn't fully fueled.

But again, this should be very rare, and no bus routes are assigned to bus types that can't complete the route.

Okay, but that's what the drivers are reporting that the the bus, the buses that you're buying now are the cheaper buses that don't have the long range charge and they're running out of charge.

So that's what the bus drivers are reporting.

And so that's just information I want to give it.

You're saying that.

I just want to give you information that the bus drivers are saying that you're buying the plymouths of the electric buses, not the Rolls Royces, and those are not the ones that are really needed.

And I do have seconds, and I'll wait for the second round.

Thank you, Mr.

Because we're almost ready to can I have an opportunity just to share a little information on how we purchase buses.

I think it's relevant to the counselor's point.

Sure.

I'm about to pick up in a little while, so for those folks who don't know what a Plymouth is, I'll give you a different analogy.

Uh instead of going with the Macy's, we're looking at the Primatic for those folks who may not understand the other, you know.

That's the alleged uh um scenario here.

So it's Macy's versus Primat.

I I shop at both, so I don't care.

All right, so let's go to um.

Uh I I it's my turn.

I have seven minutes.

All right.

So I want to start off with uh Mari Frances because based on what you say, I think it'll help me better understand the whole picture.

So as an entrepreneur, as a you know, someone who manages your own business, you you have some flexibility, but at the end of the day, you also have clients.

And so over the last you know, year, you said this has been the most difficult.

Can you give me a uh an estimated number of hours or maybe lost in financial?

I don't I don't know if I necessarily can give that off the top.

Um, but I'm on the what's up chain with the 30-ish families, and I asked them that question to see what people would say.

Uh I can give my own experience is I do have flexibility, but I also have a lot of deadlines associated with the type of work I do, um, you know.

So you know, you have to get things done, and that's what people are saying here in the chat.

It's like shuffling their day around, maybe working through dinner time if they don't get things done.

Um, you know, by the end of the day, having to there's somebody who's a therapist um on this chain, and they're talking about having to reschedule um meetings, um, you know, people, you know, I'm also a single parent.

There are other single parents on the chat talking about how difficult it is to juggle.

Um I share a car with my co-parent, so it's constantly trying to figure out like who's got the car, where are we dropping Theo off, or we go into the bus stop to meet the other parents?

So it's just it's um chaotic and um and pretty stressful.

So I don't have a dollar amount to that, um, but it definitely impacts people's work often, which is why we've banded together to try and spread out some of the burden and share the bus routes.

But can I add a little bit of other things just based on what I was hearing?

So um one I just want to say about the bus drivers for our route in particular, our bus drivers have been very consistent, both our morning and our afternoon bus drivers.

Um we have seen, and I don't know if this is around the electrical bus, but um some of the notifications we get, which I'm not quite sure how accurate they are, do talk about mechanical issues, um, not inconsistently, so I don't know if that's an electric bus or what else it might be.

But typically more so in the mornings, the mechanical issues are what's stated as the issue for the slowdown.

Um also, and I've wondered this for a long time.

We have a route that is right before us, both in the morning and in the afternoon, which I feel causes um delays, and we've asked before like does it make sense with Boston traffic, with everything else that you've stated for a bus driver to have to do these routes so closely together when we're consistently impacted, and the bus shows up an hour late because they're finishing up the the last route.

Um so and what's the bench of drivers, which you guys have mentioned.

Um but I'm glad that we're talking about this because it's giving us a little bit more insight.

And one thing, Dan, that you mentioned that I just want to push back on a little bit, is about um wanting students to have a school seat.

You said a seat closer to their house, um, which if you know the history of Boston and busing and just you know, the school in particular that I sent my child to is a hub school um where we have dual language, it's one of the few dual language schools um in the in the district, and so you know, having a seat that's closer to our house is doesn't make sense for us and the type of opportunity that I'm looking for for my child, and I can imagine that's also the case for other families and parents.

So thank you.

Thank you for that.

I and I just for the record I shared some of my time with community, so I'm not gonna I appreciate you.

No, I mean you came all the way down here, though, is the least that we can do is give you you know some more time.

So I appreciate you allowing me to upgrade.

I'm ready to head out to meet some of my deadlines.

So go ahead, go ahead.

You can you can, but thank you for being able and flexible to be upgraded and for uh staying a little bit extra.

Thank you all.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

So I I think that for me.

You should get Dan's cell phone number so you have a direct contact.

I'm just joking.

I think we already later.

You already do, okay.

I'm just saying you can get called 911, call Dan.

All right, so let's go back.

Um, you know, following the two large uh major snowstorms that we had this year, our office received reports that delays continue to persist even two weeks after.

Um and so I'm just curious what portion, if you have any information, what portion of those disruptions were directly attributed to the weather versus underlying operational issues, and why did the system take that long to return back to normal service?

Do you know?

Yeah, no, I appreciate that question.

Um I think I don't know that I can necessarily divvy up exactly what portion was due to the snowstorm, but what we saw, and I um like certainly what I experienced in my personal life as well is just with those very large snowbanks and tighter streets, there was significant traffic impact, not just to the buses, but to all vehicles across the city that persisted for weeks after the snowstorm, and so um you know that had an impact on our on time performance.

So there were a lot of streets where you know maybe there used to be two lanes, now there's there's one, or um you know, at a one-way street becomes much harder to navigate, and the buses are just going a little bit slower to make sure that everyone is is safe.

Um so we definitely saw that impact, and it I think it it took until um early March for us to kind of see that it it felt like traffic on the streets had returned to more of a steady state status quo.

Yep.

Yep.

I have 33 seconds left.

So uh I I'm just curious what percentage of bus routes currently have fully functioning real-time tracking, if you if you can provide that, and what backup protocols are in place when drivers' tablets fail or cannot connect, like what's the plan for that?

Yeah, so uh uh every bus should have um a fully functioning Zoom tablet.

I think what we see is that uh 97 to 98 percent of trips on any given day do successfully track using the Zoom app.

That as our understanding from talking to Zoom is that's consistent with benchmarks they've seen at other districts as well.

Any time um a tablet is not used successfully for the ride, if that is due to a mechanical issue with the tablet, the driver should be reporting that to you know operations and maintenance, and it the expectation is it will be fixed within 24 hours before the bus goes out the next day.

If it's not used because of um you know the driver just not using it, but there is a functioning tablet, then there's a process you know for that to be addressed as well.

Right, thank you, Dan.

And I want to just acknowledge that um my time is up.

So I am going to, if you have additional questions, I'm going to ask you to turn up your lights, all right.

Um everybody?

Okay, great.

So we're gonna start off with the lead sponsors and then go to counselor callpepper.

So it'll be in the order of counselor Murphy, Councillor Flynn, Councillor Culpepper, and then I'll ask my final five-minute okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I have a few questions, but I do just want to kind of follow up with what councillor Mejia had said about this feeling on a couple of the questions that you're like defending or kind of pitting the bus drivers and trans dev and the families, and that somehow trying to defend the bus drivers.

So I just want to make sure that you don't have that feeling that your job isn't to you know defend the trans dev drivers.

And that this hearing is to share and communicate with the people you who are in the positions to take feedback and make positive change for our families, right?

No, I I appreciate that counselor.

I just um I don't think I said it well, but all I was trying to communicate is that we talk about driver absenteeism being one of the big challenges, and that there are many reasons why a driver may be absent from work.

Many reasons why any employee in the city or anywhere is absent.

And I I try I can only speak for myself that no one on this council thinks that school bus drivers are just calling in sick for no good reason.

But we also have a system and a relationship with the company that has failed us.

And the last time you were here, we were talking about safety with transdev, and then a report came out after that we lost our insurance.

Did it lapse our coverage?

Could you speak to that?

Uh yep, I can do it.

Um the insurance structure that we had um prior to this to July 1st of this year was with a different carrier.

Um before the um very horrible uh tragedy that took place in April, that insurance coverage was already at risk of non-renewal for a variety of factors.

And um that incident that tragedy did result um, not only that, but right as I said, a variety of factors in that coverage being canceled and us going out to alternative market to get a different insurance carrier, and that began on July 1st of this year.

And that began on July 1st of this year.

So how long was it lapsed?

It was never lapsed.

I was we were dropped.

It was effective on June 30th at the like a certain minute, and then it picked up with the new insurance after that.

There was no lapse in coverage.

So they they declined to offer renewal terms.

Which is never good.

So for a company to not think that you are a good enough client because everyone always wants your business.

So on the data of routes that are late, what is the data of buses that are late more than once per week?

Ever.

Even if it's just one week, that it happened more than once in a week.

And when we're talking about percentages, are we talking about the number of students who arrive at school late or the number of routes?

The percentage of scheduled trips.

So we can average that 1,330 students are late each day, but it would come out to 44 buses per day of not showing up on time.

If you did it by the number of routes percentage-wise.

Math is probably better than mine here, so I'll take your word for it.

How many of those routes are more than 15 minutes late?

Yeah.

If you give me just a second, I can pull that up.

So for the month of March, where I had said we'd averaged 93% on time in the morning, we've had 98% within 15 minutes and uh 99% within 30%.

Okay.

So it was more like 400 students got to school after a half hour in the morning.

Do you have the data how many services are missed for students on IEPs?

A lot of times they are receiving their services first thing in the morning.

I I don't have that data available.

I understand that you know at the school level they would be tracking that and making sure that each individual student that the teacher in the school are taking steps to make up any services that were missed.

That's never brought up in conversations directly with you about the compensatory services that are needed to make up for students who either are late because of the bus or stay home the whole day because they can't get there.

Yeah, that's no, we have we have very um regular you know working groups in collaboration with the Office of Specialized Services, so we work incredibly closely with them.

Um so it's it's something that we we talk a lot about.

I just don't have that specific data point immediately available.

Similar to oh, is that my five minutes?

Okay, well, I'll just leave this out there maybe.

Um similar to the overall BPS budget, we have declining enrollment and increasing spending and decreasing return on investment.

So, how do we justify that we continue to spend more?

Right, 200 million dollars now, and we have less students where transporting.

Um although we can say we're doing a little bit better, we know.

And one other thing, and maybe just put it on the record when we talk about transportation for our athletes.

I'd like to know how many sports do not get a bus.

So, how many are actually being provided transportation?

Because I don't know many times students are expected to just get themselves there when a bus was never planned to pick them up anyway.

So thank you.

I'm gonna allow for uh the administration to answer those two questions if you have them, just because out of respect for the sponsor, um, but where's it we're at time and when done?

So if you don't mind.

Sure.

So I'll start with the question about athletics.

Um I think it's it's not a sports-specific decision necessarily, so much as we have um you know, scheduling considerations that are put in place collaboratively with transportation and athletics, and so for instance, if a team is able to get to a game through the MBTA, you know, and it's would take about the same amount of time as it would on the yellow bus, and it's a sport where they can you know transport their equipment on the T, we would ask them to take the T.

Uh so it's you know it's not a sports-specific decision so much as following those considerations across kind of all sports, and we work very closely with athletics on that scheduling and and those operations.

And then I think on the the cost side of thing, I absolutely agree with you.

This has been a top priority of ours is how do we kind of rein in this transportation spending?

It has it is too much of the BPS budget.

Um as we are right sizing the system, we are starting to see those cost efficiencies.

We're on track for FY26 to spend uh you know in line with FY25 and for FY27 as well.

Um we're projecting you know flat costs.

And I think you know, as we continue to right size the system, we expect that spending to go down.

Thank you.

All right, counselor uh Flynn, you have five minutes.

Thank you, madam chair.

Uh Boston School Committee Chair Robinson um recommended that there'd be an audit.

I listened to her the other night that there'd be an audit on BPS.

My question is has there ever been an audit on BPS transportation?

Yes, Councilor.

I um I think there's been a number of different ones.

Um the council of the I guess DESI did multiple audits, you know, over the the last few years.

Uh the Council of Great City Schools did a uh audit or review of the transportation system in 2022.

Um our in auto in liability insurance company uh performs uh an on-site as on-site assessment or independent audit of the safety operations on a every year on an annual basis.

So there's there's a number of different you know ways in which we get that feedback right quickly.

Um could I get a copy of all of those audits, including the year-to-year audits?

Um, Madam Chair, for the record, I'd like to get a copy of all the audits over the last five years or so.

Um, how much is BPS now paying for um insurance for bus drivers?

Um that's so that'd be per year or 12 months over 12 month period.

Um if I may, while we're getting that number for you, it um the insurance doesn't just cover bus drivers, it it's a first-line auto liability insurance for incidents on or related to the bus.

So it also encovers um staff on the bus who might not be bus drivers.

How much is how much do we pay for that?

Uh if you just need to give me a minute, counselor, to pull that up.

So um, but I'm pulling that up for you.

You want to ask another question when you go to the other.

Yeah, and it would be related to that.

How much do we pay now for it?

And how much do we pay?

I know you referenced the horrible accident we have had.

How much how much will we paying prior to that horrible um tragic ac accident as well?

Sure.

So the structures of the two poly policies are you know different in some ways, so it's not necessarily an apple stables comparison.

Things like the the deductible and um other aspects of those nuances of the policy have changed.

The I believe this is right, if if not, I'll follow up, but the premium for our FY26 auto liability insurance policy is 3.3 million.

3.3 million we pay each year basically.

And how much were we paying before that tragic accident?

I um we'll need another minute, but I can pull that up for you, Council.

And my other question is based on the cost of fuel and in insurance and um logistics and supplies.

Do you think BPS transportation will look for additional funding for um from the budget or a supplemental budget based on the cost of fuel going forward?

Uh so our FY27 uh budget request and and budget, which I um think will be or BPS will be back to to speak with the council about uh later in April accounts for anticipated inflation in the cost of fuel and as well as um our anticipated renewal of our auto insurance policy for FY27 and all other transportation costs.

So, how much will BPS be looking for for FY27?

Uh for for transportation.

Uh the entire transportation budget proposal for FY27 was 198 million.

What 198?

That's correct.

Okay, almost 200, almost 200 million dollars.

Um what percent it what percent increase is that uh I don't have that immediately available, counselor.

I if if it's okay, I'll I'll make sure that for the April 14th hearing we have that information.

Yeah, 198.

And what was it last year then?

Uh 188 million in FY26.

That's pretty significant though, isn't it?

Um 10 million dollars going up on transportation.

Doesn't that's doesn't that seem a lot when enrollment is going down?

Yeah, yeah, I want to I want to um just make sure I'm able to give all the budget questions, you know, you know, um their due.

So um we'll we'll make sure to have very detailed answers on the 14th for these.

Would I be able to get that information prior to the um release to the budget so I can thoroughly prepare for the budget when it's released?

Of course.

Excellent.

Madam Chair, thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Flynn.

And I want to note that uh we are taking notes of the things that we need to uh follow up on, so uh we will uh be working on that.

I'm going to go now to Councillor Culpeper.

You now have five minutes.

Thank you, madam chair.

And Dan, I I didn't want you to try and answer every questions about the electric buses, but I did want you to know that was one of the complaints that some of the drivers told me when I talked to them that the charge was running out, and so they weren't able to finish the afternoon um portion of the drive because of the morning where the buses ran out of the charge, and they would say, well, you know, they just they bought the cheapest of the buses, the electrobuses that they could.

So you don't I know you were gonna talk about the process for buying buses, but just for information, I wanted to talk a little bit about the protocols when an accident takes place and how that works when an accident takes place.

What happens to that driver?

Is he taken out of work?

What happens with the replacement bus, the protocol for that, and then how are the parents notified?

Yeah.

Uh so any time uh a bus is involved in an accident, the driver should immediately radio that in to the transdev safety desk.

At that point in time, the safety desk would make the decisions from there.

First, they would immediately inform BPS transportation so that we can communicate to fan any families of students on the bus in real time.

Depending on the circumstances of the situation, a road safety supervisor may be deployed to the bus to you know assess the accident.

Um again, depending on the circumstances of the situation, the bus may be cleared to continue the remainder of its route, or the bus may, you know, the driver may be instructed to not continue the route and instead a covering bus would be assigned for the remainder of the route.

Um within 24 hours, that driver would submit what's called an accident report, which is a RMV uh mandated form.

Um and transdev safety would conduct you know an invest their investigation into the accident.

Um there's a lot of you know nuances and things that go into that investigation.

Um determination would be made.

Was this a preventable accident or a non-preventable accident, as well as a determination about what is the follow-up steps taken from there in some type, you know, in some cases that is likely, and in many, if not most cases, that is likely to include some sort of retraining for the driver.

You know, depending on the severity of the accident, there could also be progressive disciplinary steps taken.

And so just briefly, counselor, just because it's very complicated.

I'd want to give a chance to Jackie and make sure I didn't miss anything.

Uh there's an additional process.

Uh also I just want to note that preventable versus non-preventable is not the same as like a uh us driving in our personal insurance.

It's against a professional standard of driving that is applicable to the drivers because they are professional drivers.

Um it is it's very different from liability for the accident.

It really looks at whether the driver could have taken steps that would be expected consistent with their training to have prevented the situation that caused the accident from existing.

So it is uh there's a technical definition.

I did not just give the technical definition, but it is akin to that.

Um and then for uh if there's a disagreement between the the uh transdev and the driver about the determination of preventability, there is an additional process called the accident review committee where the uh the driver, their union representation, and the management come together with a neutral third party to uh review the accident and make a final determination on preventability, and that can and if there are multiple preventable accidents that can lead as Dan mentioned to progressive discipline up to an including termination, but we always encourage and support and require transdev to focus on training and give people an opportunity when they can safely do so to be successful in their career of driving.

Um so the I want to get to the protocol.

So the protocol, let's say the br the driver uh is told because of the accident that he's no longer to continue.

What's the protocol for the replacement bus?

And how are the parents notified that the bus that was intended to pick up the children?

And mind you, I'm asking about picking up children.

I I haven't gotten to the question about where the children are still on the bus in an accident takes place.

What's the protocol for the replacement of the bus where that driver is told to no longer continue with his driving?

Yeah.

So if there were students on the bus at the time of the accident, those families we would individually call to make sure they're aware of what happened and let them know what we're doing, whether that's sending a replacement bus, continuing on, etc.

Um, if they're say the driver had an accident on the first school of the day, and the the second and third school, we now a backup bus is dispatched.

The protocol for notifying those families would be the same as in the case of any time when there's a backup or covering business.

What's the protocol for replacing the bus?

Yeah, so what I mean.

Yep, so within the Zoom app, the parents can see our tracking the bus, and Zoom provides automated push notifications of the case.

No, no, no.

What's a protocol for replacing a bus?

You take the bus off the street.

So right, what's a protocol for replacing that bus with another bus?

Yeah, so that would be a decision made by or a process followed by the dispatchers to identify a backup bus.

In some cases, maybe there's standby drivers remaining at the yard who didn't have any assigned work on that day, and you know, as that a standby driver is immediately dispatched to leave the yard with a bus to go cover.

In other cases, maybe there's already a driver on the road in that area of the city who is has just finished or is near finishing up his or her current route, and that driver you know says, yes, I'll take on this additional route to go cover it.

And so that's it's a process followed by dispatch to try to provide coverage as quickly and as timely as possible.

So it's really based on up to the dispatcher.

It is a it's I would say it is a um process that dispatch follows, you know, to go through either the standby bid process or to put out the need for a cover bus and you know, then drive.

And what's the stand-by bid process?

Sorry, Consortium, okay, call pepper.

Okay.

I think out of fairness, I've been very gracious with your line of questioning.

And you could rewatch the tape, and you could see that you have gone over.

Okay, but I have a good question.

Just what we're recording.

Yes, good.

The standby bid process is a process detailed in the driver's CBA, whereby standby drivers select their work and definitely happy to connect offline if you want to talk through in more detail.

Thank you, Dan.

Thank you, Jacqueline.

Okay, great, thank you.

Um, so I'm gonna go to my five minutes, and then um okay.

So, and I I'm not gonna take all five minutes, so you're lucky.

All right, so if you could um if you could, you already did, that's why I'm not using it.

Um, so if you could uh tell me uh about um because I'm just trying to I'm just trying to understand this.

So given the repeated reports that the tracking system is both both technology and driver dependent, who is responsible when tracking fails BPS?

The vendor or the operator, or who is it, and who's accountable for uh the enforcement?

Uh so I I think both are responsible, right?

So the um like the maintenance team is responsible for making sure that every bus has a working Zoom tablet and a working geotab device and everything else working on the bus.

The driver is responsible for using that technology, the dispatchers are responsible for using what's called the dispatch control center, which flags in real time any buses that are not appropriately signed in, and then you know, trans dev management is ultimately responsible for making sure that each of those parties are doing their job, and that if they're not that appropriate interventions are happening, BPS as the the client, and ultimately you know we serve the families of Boston, we are accountable for making sure that transdev and all of those parties are doing their their job.

Okay, thank you.

Um I'd like to, it would be helpful for me to see that on a dashboard or on your website because I think that we we're always getting questions from families about who is responsible for what.

So if there was a way for you all to share that publicly, that would be really helpful, um, at least to my constituents.

Um then I'm just curious how many uh instances of uncovered routes, no show buses or delays exceeding one hour have occurred this school year.

Do you have that?

I can try to pull that up for you.

And I'd like to know how that compares to prior years.

Yeah, because we keep talking about incremental change and and change is good, but I think given the level of frustration that we've heard from so many of our families, we kind of want to you know see quicker.

I can I can re reiterate a point uh that Dan shared earlier that incremental change is important because it needs to be change that sustains and that we've built systems behind it to make sure it doesn't regress, and that the recent regression was particularly concerning because it it was the opposite of what we had seen, and um it that is why it required such a strong response to make sure it was really clear that we understand that the system has never served families as intended, but we have to sustain the improvement we've made, and regression is never going to be tolerated.

And then so there's been 361,060 scheduled trips this year.

Of those 3,171 were uncovered.

That represents 0.9% of all scheduled trips.

This compares to the past few years where we averaged a 0.2% of scheduled trips.

So that's that regression that we've seen this year in this coverage area.

While we've continued to see on time performance improving across the board, this particular metric has regressed, and that's where we've you know really taken escalatory steps to address that.

Thank you.

And I'm curious because this, you know, you keep talking about pointing to December.

So December, we've got January, February, March, April.

We're now going into four months of regression, right?

At some point.

I'm just curious.

I know we're now doing course correction, uh, we're putting trans dev on notice that we're going to give them punitive measures and $500 uh penalty per miss or significantly delayed trips, like right?

Have you explicitly said that to them?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, and they got the memo win.

Uh end of February.

Okay.

Before the start of March.

So they got a warning.

Because if you sent it out in February, right?

And beginning of March.

Uh so I guess the reason I keep referring to December is that's when we started to see this uptick, and from there, you know, we have to.

No, the question was when did you notify them?

You said in February, like end of February.

Okay, end of February.

So all of March has happened.

Correct.

You already gave them the heads up in February.

Correct.

But you have yet to hold them accountable, and now we're entering.

I I understand your question.

So uh that's what I'm trying to do.

Just I guess logistically, the way damages are assessed is against the monthly management fee, which is paid after the conclusion of the month.

So uncovered trips in March will be assessed against the March management fee when that fee is paid out.

And so for the record, that based on that, we will see some fines.

Correct.

For the For March proceeded.

For March.

Okay, so that's we've seen uncovered trips in March have come down by more than half from where they were.

November, you know, December, January, February, but nonetheless, they're not back to that.

Okay, that's zero level.

I just want to note that for the record.

I do think that that's a really important thing.

Thanks for clarifying.

People might think, oh, they haven't done anything, but you have, and then you've been monitoring it, and come March, that's well, at the end of March, you'll start finding them in April.

Okay, so I don't have any more questions.

Um, and I'm just curious if my colleagues have any closing remarks.

So you each have a minute.

A question that was asked by counselor Flynn, and you gave us the 3.3 million dollars we're spending now.

What were we spending before?

You said you were pulling that up.

Yeah, I apologize with trying to make sure I'm tracking everyone's questions.

I haven't had a chance to pull it up.

Do you have it?

I okay.

Let me and while you're pulling that up.

The punitive measures we keep talking about, these aren't new.

We've always had those at our disposal, correct?

Correct.

So we always could have sided with our students and families, but and staff who stay hours, hundreds of hours each year, but we chose to never use the tools we had to hold a school bus company accountable.

Even after their lack of professionalism caused us to lose our insurance, and we had to go out and find another insurance company based on their lack of professional driving, which cost us child's life, and many others injured.

So in families, which we heard today.

So I just want to make sure it's clear that this isn't something new.

Like we decided, oh, we're finally like we always could have done this, and we've never held them accountable.

I just don't understand why.

Yeah, so I really appreciate that question, counselor.

I think ultimately, you know, my responsibility and and my task is to improve transportation for the students in the city of Boston.

We have been pushing in many different ways to try to do that.

We have seen incremental improvement.

Liquidated.

I said this was hold on.

I'm the facilitator.

My apologies.

Everybody hold up, right?

So I want to be really clear.

What I said this was going to be for closing statements.

This is not going to open up for another back and forth.

I'm going to keep this in committee, and then we could have a second hearing and we could unpack it further.

And what I'm going to ask the administration is between now and when I host the second hearing for the questions that we did not get responses to to supply that to my council colleagues.

But what we're not going to do is open up a second round of back and forth because we're we're not doing that.

I asked one question.

But two.

Um and we're not doing that.

We're going to do closing remarks, and that's it.

Cool.

All right.

So counselor Flynn, you have a minute.

The increase in BPS transportation from last year of spending 188 million dollars, and likely to spend this year 198 million dollars is almost a six percent increase.

That that's that's significant.

That's that is huge.

Um I I know we're waiting, I know we're waiting on the taxes that we spend each year.

This year we spent, we're going to spend 3.3 million dollars.

It should be an easy answer for BPS to provide me what we spent previous to spending 3.3 million dollars, so I'm able to effectively do my due diligence.

Um I'm not gonna ask the question again because it's been asked a bunch of times, but I I would like to know how much we spent prior to the 3.3 million dollars in taxes um insurance rather.

Um but there's a lot of there's a lot of information I need to be that I need to receive, so I'm prepared to um vote on the BPS budget.

Thank you, Navarre.

Thank you, Councilor Flynn, and I want to uh thank uh the public testimony, the administration, um, and my council colleagues for an engaging dialogue today.

I am going to be keeping this uh docket, um, docket zero three seven four um in committee, and I will be uh calling upon a second hearing um before the end of the school year, so that we can keep track of what we said we were going to do, whether or not we did it, what the outcomes were, what did we learn?

Because at the end of the day, there's just so much that we can do in a three-hour time span, and you always leave with lots of questions that we still need answers to.

So my hope is is that in the next three months um we could host another hearing and kind of unpack what we've learned since then.

Does that sound like a good course of action?

Counselor Murphy, would that be helpful to you as the lead sponsor?

Counselor Flynn, would that would you would you appreciate that so that we don't feel rushed or that we don't feel silenced in this chamber?

We'll do a second hearing.

And though so this hearing is adjourned.