72325PEP
Don’t discuss the bus without us!
Wednesday July 23 in Manhattan at 6:00 p.m.
Comment about summer busing contracts at the monthly Panel for Education Policy meeting
Our school board is expected to approve $89 Million in emergency 30-day school bus contracts for this July and August alone, because the main contracts have expired. The members, the politicians who appoint most of them, Education reporters and the public at large need to get used to hearing strong feedback from those of us whose loved ones ride the bus...because even bigger contracts are on the horizon, and there will be a new pair of school bus bills in Albany to legislate EPP and create an opening for terms of DOE contracts with companies to be re-negotiated. Nobody knows better than the riders, loved ones, school staff & school bus staff what works and doesn’t work to raise the standards for routes, vehicles, communication, training and prevention/solution to violations of IEP accommodations.
Contracts are always early in the agenda. The descriptions are published already at https://www.schools.nyc.gov/docs/default-source/data/contracts-agendafbd18671-0e1c-42f3-9398-e29139f73bdd.pdf?sfvrsn=b81e0f4a_1
Read Item 31, costs of (and cases against) Pre-K companies, pages 77-85
or Item 33, costs of (and cases against) school age companies, pages 97-111,
and notice what comes to your heart and mind. Don’t let them talk about the bus without us!
In person M.S. 131 (100 Hester Street, Manhattan, New York 10002)
Map and photo are on this page with basic transit information and link to search more.
To speak, you must register between 5:30 to 6:15 on the same day at https://learndoe.org/pep/jul23/
Remote- use the same link but you can only listen! ~
Either way, we hope everyone will submit written comments!
TIPS:
We have a sample written comment at http://bit.ly/4kMe8JC set up for you to copy, check boxes that apply, and add your own experience in your own words!
If you have “google docs” please select FILE, choose MAKE A COPY from the dropdown and go to work, deleting and revising however you wish. When you are done, you can highlight, copy and get ready to paste in the Public Comment Form linked below. If you don’t have google docs you can either edit the sample inside the Public Comment Form or in any word processing software that you have such as Microsoft.
Note: depending on your computer, the shortcut is usually [Command or Ctrl or Apple] + the letter A to highlight everything, then [Command or Ctrl or Apple] + the letter C to copy everything. The last step when you get to the end of the Comment Form is hitting [Command or Ctrl or Apple] + the letter V to paste everything.
Open the Public Comment form at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezM7S0zfCMXb_BiXecJSnxsfL1E27CbCTwT0TflzuZbe3cAQ/viewform
If that link doesn’t work, please open https://www.schools.nyc.gov/get-involved/families/panel-for-education-policy and click on the words Written Public Comment Form found under the 3 dark blue rectangles.
Enter your information. The subject of your comment is Contracts. The last line is for you to write (or paste) your statement.
Click the SUBMIT button. You should receive a copy of what you submitted, at your email. Please forward that to pistnyc@gmail.com if you want us to know your concerns. We may represent them in our own recap of the meeting with media and social media. We will seek consent before using anything that identifies you or the school by name, and will never identify your child! Another option is to only send us key sentences.
Note: The Comment Form does not include a way for you to upload images or PDFs. We don’t notice any way to use Speech to Text or other accommodations. If you need to do any of that, please contact PIST 631.743.6296 and we can find a way together.
You can start using this now and it should still be there 24 hours or so after the meeting ends. Sooner is better, but anything you can do is great.
Please share widely ~~~ Hope to see you Wednesday!
Entrance to the school. Street Map is below.
Visit https://www.mta.info/ , Accessible subway station map https://www.mta.info/map/5346 and Manhattan bus map https://www.mta.info/map/5391 ahead of time to find out if any mass transit will get you to 100 Hester Street & back home.
The nearest subway station is the GRAND STREET stop on the B and D but it has no elevator.
The elevator at the CANAL STREET stop on the #6 train is under repair until July 31.
We will comment to the organizers that an accessible building is not enough without accessible transportation!!
Close up of the part of the PEP’s Written Public Comment Form which has you check off who you are, check off the subject of your comment, and then enter your comment as text.