Alex Arriving at Pine Bush Elementary on Accessible Bus

Alex arrives at Pine Bush Elementary school for the fourth day in a row using his favorite mobility device, his posterior walker, after almost six years of intentional exclusion based on disability. Only disabled children with specially equipped to the district's satisfaction wheelchairs or those able bodied enough to use the bus steps are given school transportation. This means that when Alex has actually needed to use a specially prescribed wheelchair temporarily after surgery on his legs they refuse to allow access and transportation on a school bus specially equipped to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG) for Transportation when he needed it most in his life. CDTA's STAR system has renewed my faith in humanity, how children are treated is a reflection of our society. That disabled children like Alex have been for so long segregated, standees excluded, and wheelchair standards set by operators of school buses thus relegating them to an egregiously discriminatory lesser service on "special education buses" that operators of all other public transportation would find shocking and themselves in proceedings with the United States Department of Transportation over is a shameful reflection on school transit and DOT. My son and other disabled children have been getting a special education alright, unfortunately for them their voices are unheard because they do not know any better. Congress knew better when The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was written and even later had to mirror it with the Americans with Disabilities Act because too many in our society still seemed to not know better. Now over a quarter century later even those with oversight responsibility for our school children's transportation and education still don't know better? Please.

[@tombom-kn4yx]

i know alex