Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Better customer service from the RUSD Transportation Department

(Because it always seems that I write disparaging comments about RUSD, I must make a point of sharing the good things that happen, too.)

For those readers who know me, know that I have had ongoing issues with the RUSD Transportation department. In fact, I wrote about my first good experience last year about this time.

Okay, first the bad news:

Unified apparently did not get all the bussing information to the parents as promised.

My daughter did NOT receive any bussing information from the RUSD Transportation Department. Of course, this has happened so many times in the past that I don’t even panic anymore. I drive them the first few days until I can finally get a hold of somebody in the Transportation Department and get it straightened out.

Now, the good news:

The Transportation knew (?) the students who did not receive bussing information and personally called what must have been every family with the bussing information. I received my phone call late Saturday afternoon.

While I am very appreciative of the phone call I received Saturday afternoon, I do respectfully suggest the following for next year:

Plan ahead.


I realize that many children move in/out throughout the summer and the district tries to hold off creating the schedules until all the transfers are done, but I suggest you make a deadline for changes and stick to it. It seems by trying to accommodate a few, many more suffer .

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It will not surprise you to find out the latest mistake by RUSD. Our bus driver informed me that we had been switched from a stop at our house to a bus stop, mind you my child has special needs.

This is the same driver as last year and she thought it odd that now it was changed and also said that 3 other special needs kids had been switched from home to stops, all autistic and special needs kids.

It turns out that RUSD changed the rules and as per usual claim they informed the teachers that in the IEPs it needed to now (as of 2007) state HOME busette instead of just busette. Now we had the IEP in May, and of all the persons involved, myself and about 5 others that someone would have known this if they had in fact instructed anyone as to the changes.

So now a bunch of paperwork needs to be filled out and will take at least a week to hash out. What's the big deal? Well what happens when one of these autistic kids gets lost, disoriented, abducted, molested etc due to the fact that they are required to now find a bus stop?

Not a huge concern for me as I will now have to take my child to the stop and retrieve her after school, but I am lucky to be able to do so.

Looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen. RUSDs responce: nothing we can do, the paperwork has to be filed, even though no changes were to be made to the bussing and it was RUSD that decided to change the wording.

Brenda said...

Unbelievable, let's change the rules and not tell anyone about it...

This is certainly not the first time that RUSD has taken advantage of their most vulnerable students, as I am sure you are away!

Brenda said...

"aware", sorry.