After sharing the frustration and outrage felt by parents of school children over the past month as a result of the school bus drivers strike that began on January 16th, Councilman David G. Greenfield is relieved that this work stoppage has finally come to an end. As a result, yellow school bus service for more than 100,000 public and private school students who were impacted by the strike will resume on Wednesday, after an agreement was reached on Friday.

Greenfield is especially pleased on behalf of children who receive special education and their parents, who were the most inconvenienced by the strike because of the long distance many of these students travel to reach their school. Throughout his career as an education advocate and an elected official, Councilman Greenfield has fought very hard to ensure that every student receives the services they are entitled to. As a result, he was very outspoken throughout the strike about the impact and disruption this work stoppage had on special needs children, whose attendance dropped by approximately one-third over the past month.

“I share the relief of thousands of parents and students that this strike has finally come to an end. I worked very hard over the past month to reduce the impact it had on local families, especially those with children who rely on special education, and I will continue to work hard to prevent this from occurring again. In the meantime, I am thrilled that hundreds of thousands of children can resume their normal routine and will no longer have their education disrupted by a strike that was completely avoidable in the first place,” said Councilman Greenfield.

As the strike dragged on, Councilman Greenfield repeatedly called on both sides to resume negotiations and reach a deal on behalf of parents who were greatly disrupted, and students whose educations were impacted by the labor dispute. During a City Council hearing on the strike earlier this month, Councilman Greenfield directly questioned Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott about the lack of action by the city to end the strike, and demanded that an agreement be reached. He also worked hard to resolve issues with the distribution of MetroCards to eligible students and parents, and worked with the DOE to create a special voucher for special-needs children.

Now that school bus service is set to resume on Wednesday, Councilman Greenfield is renewing his call for the city to institute a permanent transportation voucher system that would allow parents to contract directly with a bus company that best fits their child’s schedule and needs, which would prevent the students from being caught in the middle of future work stoppages while saving the city hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Currently, it costs the city approximately $6,900 per child annually for bus service, by far the highest cost of any city in the nation. Councilman Greenfield’s plan would greatly reduce this cost for the city while creating a system that works much better for individual parents and children. Council Members Greenfield and Lew Fidler are meeting with Deputy Schools Chancellor Kathleen Grimm in the coming weeks to discuss their plan in detail.

“This work stoppage has once again made it clear that we need to completely overhaul the student transportation system to prevent our children from being caught in the middle of another labor dispute, and to bring the costs down for everybody. That’s why I will continue to fight for a voucher system that is affordable, reliable and individually tailored to each student’s schedule and needs,” concluded Councilman Greenfield.

(YWN Desk – NYC)