Handicapped Students to Have Their Buses Again

After eight days of bus shortages for handicapped students, the Orange County Department of Education said Wednesday that a solution has been reached with the bus contractor.

But it will be several more days before all buses return to normal, contractor Larry Durham said, adding: “Getting drivers back on all routes is not going to happen overnight.”

Dean McCormick, president of the county Board of Education, said: “I realistically don’t expect all the routes to be back to normal immediately, but I think they will all be back by Monday.”

Assistant Supt. Fred Koch said the county Education Department and Durham Transportation Inc. reached agreement on ways to make a 1985-1990 contract more profitable. Durham has said that his income under the contract doesn’t allow him to attract and hire enough drivers for all the bus routes.

Specifics Not Available

Specifics of the agreement were not available pending legal review, Koch said. Durham added that he could not elaborate on the settlement. “The technical people are straightening out details,” he said.

The basic contract pays Durham about $2.5 million a year to transport some 800 handicapped children to 21 county-operated schools. The new agreement increases that dollar amount, Koch said.

The settlement ended a threat by a state watchdog agency to file a federal civil rights complaint against the county Education Department. That agency, Developmental Disabilities Board, Area Board XI, had set Wednesday as the deadline for resolving the bus shortage.

Rhys Burchill, executive director of the watchdog agency, said she was set to mail formal letters of complaint to the federal civil rights office in San Francisco when she received notice of the bus settlement on Wednesday morning.

“If this is confirmed, and the bus shortage ends, then we will not be filing a complaint,” Burchill said. “We will still be monitoring this situation and will be taking calls from parents about any problems they might have.”

Burchill said parents of handicapped children “have suffered” since Sept. 12, when the bus shortage first developed. About 400 of the children were stranded at home that first day by lack of buses. In subsequent days, the Education Department hired cabs and a supplementary bus company to help make up for the shortage of Durham drivers. Many parents, however, still had to make their own arrangements.

Free Transportation Required

State and federal laws specifically require free transportation for handicapped children by the agencies that provide their schooling. According to Burchill, failure to provide bus service thus constitutes a denial of the children’s civil rights.

Robert Peterson, county schools superintendent, said the bus shortage caught him by surprise. But two county Board of Education trustees, Elizabeth Parker and Sheila Meyers, charged last week that Peterson had advance warnings of the bus contractor’s problems and failed to notify board members.

McCormick, the board president, said on Wednesday: “Storm warnings about this situation were out all summer, and it seems there was a lack of a sense of urgency on the part of the administration (of the county Department of Education). I think it’s a shame that this had to happen, and I’m glad that a settlement has been reached.”