Special ed left behind - No buses, no school for Detroit Public Schools' neediest

[Bozita]

Last Updated: September 24. 2010 10:57AM
Special ed left behind
No buses, no school for Detroit Public Schools' neediest
Marisa Schultz / The Detroit News


Detroit

The autistic 16-year-old fidgets with his fingers, gets up from the couch and heads to the bathroom to fill a glass of water. He sits back down for a while, rubs his fingers then moves to a kitchen chair, scratching his knee.

It's 6:37 a.m. -- the time the school bus should be at his northwest Detroit home. A bus is heard in the distance and his mother leaps up and helps him put on his Spider-Man backpack. But like every other day for nearly three weeks, this bus didn't come for Alonzo.

While other children in Detroit Public Schools started instruction Sept. 7, Alonzo has yet to go to class.

A lack of transportation, confusion over school assignments and problems with staffing have frustrated families with special needs students. This comes despite the district's efforts to streamline transportation by outsourcing busing and hiring a New York firm to make special education more efficient.

Nearly 1 in 5 DPS students requires special education services, according to the state. Lack of transportation is particularly troubling for students with disabilities whose Individualized Education Program assessment that details which services, therapies and teaching goals a student will get, calls for "curb to curb" busing, as is the case with Alonzo.

Alonzo's school, Cooley North, which housed special education classes, closed this year along with 29 others in the face of budget cuts. He was assigned to another special education school, Jerry L. White. Thirty minutes after he left home the bus brought him back since the school doesn't offer an autistic education program, said his mother, Allene Griffith, 53.

That set off a series of phone calls, voice mails, no answers and eventually a new assignment to Central High School, a traditional neighborhood school. Alonzo had previously been separated from a general school population. He struggles to grasp a pencil and has no effective means of communication. His mother wonders how her son will get the same level of service at Central.

But first he needs to get there.

more...

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100924/SCHOOLS/9240378/1408/local/No-buses--no-school-for-Detroit-Public-Schools--neediest#ixzz10T3YQ7GI

[Starry Messenger]

1. Didn't Bobb hire this "service"?

If so, he deserves to be keelhauled.

[zipplewrath]

5. Probably the wrong guy for the job

I actually "know" Bobb from many years ago (Bob Bobb as we used to call him). Not personally mind you, but he worked in local government in a town I used to live in. He had "good" ideas for streamlining and re-organizing small governments. Since then he has managed to work his way up to the point now where he is tackling this problem. Here's the problem. He is what we call a 50,000 foot kinda guy. From very high up you can't see the details, you don't see people and pets and dirty laundry and potholes. So "solutions" seem clear and easy to organize. Down on the ground however everything looks different. Things are messy and far more complicated than from the 50,000 foot leve.

Bob Bobb is trying large changes, quickly, to a large system. But those changes affect individuals with individual needs and problems. Pushing "50,000 foot" solutions onto individuals quickly is a sure fire way to hurt alot of people.

[Starry Messenger]

9. I lived in a little town called Oakland.

:D He was city manager while I lived there. He seemed sane during that time, but after a stint in the Broad Academy he seems to have inhaled some spores. He's had hearings with the community of Detroit and is imposing a top down format on them anyway. The blog Michigan Citizen says he's been a disaster for the DPS.

[zipplewrath]

12. Difference between Elective and Emergency surgery

It's a bit like the difference between elective surgery and emergency surgery or the ER. You can be good at one, and not so good at the other. If the schools had the time and resources to transition to a more efficient model, he'd probably be the right guy. A system that is in total collapse and needs to stop the implosion, may not be his strongest suit.

[Bozita]

7. Yup, the fired drivers were supposed to get the first interviews for their old jobs.

Those hired by the new provider are working for lower wages.

[Starry Messenger]

10. That's what I thought.

Wasn't there a kid hurt on this company's buses too? I thought I read that from last spring.

[Bozita]

11. A 10-11yo girl was decapitated by a tree branch

Bus was pulling away from the curb while the girl was calling out to friends on the sidewalk. Her head was sticking out the window.

[Starry Messenger]

14. Jesus, that's right. Horrible.

:(

[sakabatou]

2. Jeebus...

:banghead:

[Panaconda]

3. K&R

[KamaAina]

4. Usually the only way to get school districts to fix stuff like this is to sue them

:eyes:

[TBF]

6. The downsizing of Detroit is absolutely disgusting -

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/detr-s22.shtml

[sufrommich]

8. The "downsizing " of Detroit has been a continual process

since the early 1960's. Someone (Dave Bing) is finally acknowledging it and doing something about it.

[EFerrari]

13. Repurposing for the good of the community would be one thing

but in these new days of global robber barons, that's obviously not what is happening.

[Gabi Hayes]

15. producing more helots for the new, international slave economy:

Spartan soldiers would come to the homes of babies born to citizens. They were to make sure they were without defect and healthy. Babies who were deformed or unhealthy were taken away and exposed to the elements to die.

Others might be raised as left to die on a hillside, or taken away to become non-citizen laborers called helots--virtual slaves. Exposing unhealthy babies was not uncommon in Greece, but it was a decision made by the child' parents. In Sparta it was a decision made by the state. Healthy babies were left with the mother, but assigned to a brotherhood or sisterhood, normally the same one to which the baby's father or mother belonged.

http://histclo.com/chron/ancient/gre/city/acgc-sparta.html