Posted on 09/26/2018 4:51:07 AM PDT by Kid Shelleen
---SNIP--- the cost of merely getting Kareem Bellamy to and from school every day runs the taxpayer about $58,450 annually — more than a year of undergraduate tuition at Columbia University, the most expensive college in America. The district’s cost for the average bus rider is about $4,500 a year. Something that comes with a Cadillac price, one would assume, comes with Cadillac service. But when WHYY asked parents, advocates, and lawyers about taxicab transportation for students, we heard more grumbling than gratitude.
(Excerpt) Read more at whyy.org ...
I’ve always seen that place as a good place to not live.
Seattle does this also!!! We got off a cruise ship and had to wait almost an hour for a cab because they are all used to take Special Needs kids to school!!!!
This sounds like a strategy to collapse the system. Anarchy might be worse, but America seems to have lost the ability to legally say “No.”
This case is extreme. Any cab has to handle aguy in the back seat who could go nuts while you are driving. Also, it normally means the cabby has special licensing. And a special vehicle. At least its true around here. I also know the cabbies love this business. two rides a day and they are done.
What ever happened to “the Short Bus”????
Sounds like Philly and this family deserve each other.
At one time, and maybe to this day, this “homeless” student might be a child whose family got evicted from their home in the city and goes to live with an aunt in the suburbs. The article did not describe how much this taxicab transportation every day to take that child back to his “school of origin” in the city costs. For most people, that is called moving and the kids go to a new school.
"The federal law governing special education — known as IDEA — says that if a student with special needs isn’t making progress, the district has to find a better option. In some cases, that means sending the student to a private school focusing on special education, with the home district picking up the tab."
Exactly. I bet you could send a teacher to his home for half a day for less than the cost of the taxi.
I have family in nearby affluent Cherry Hill NJ and families move in there because of the special needs program. The school spends something like 200k on every special needs kid. The kid "graduates" and is on assistance of every sort the rest of their lives. Why bother with all the education if the person is not educable. The result is the same.
Cool! Where can I get a similar job? I’ll even give the school dist a 10% discount.
We call the short bus, the chocolate milk bus because they need a snack on their direct ride home. Regular bus kids can’t so much as sneak in Skittles and it takes some 2 hours to make all those stops.
My first thought, as well. But in these economically marginal families, both parents need to work, and school is the babysitter.
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