IDEA Complaint Decision 24-125

On October 28, 2024, the Department of Public Instruction (department) received a complaint under state and federal special education law from #### (parent) against the #### (district). This is the department’s decision regarding this complaint. The issue identified is whether the district, beginning October 28, 2023, properly implemented the individualized education program (IEP) of a student with a disability regarding specialized transportation.

School districts meet their obligation to provide free appropriate public education (FAPE) to each student with a disability, in part, by implementing each student's IEP as it is written. Staff responsible for implementing the student's IEP must be informed of their specific responsibilities. 34 CFR §300.323 and Wis. Stat. §115.787. The IEP must include a statement of the special education services to be provided to the student. Specialized transportation is considered a related service. Each student's IEP must include a statement of the special education, related services, and supplementary aids and services to be provided to the child, including the projected date for the beginning of the services and the anticipated duration of the services. All services must be clearly stated in the IEP in a manner that can be understood by all involved in the development and implementation of the IEP. 34 CFR §§ 300.320(a)(4) and (a)(7).

The student who is subject of the complaint is in eighth grade and receives services through an IEP for physical, academic, and executive functioning needs. The student’s current IEP includes specialized transportation due to the student’s health, safety, and medical needs “from home address to school in morning and return from school to home in the afternoon” to include adult assistance up and down stairs, smaller steps, and seating near the front of the bus. The IEP includes that the student needs a bus with a lift as the student may at times travel with a wheelchair.

In October of 2024, the student’s mother requested an IEP team meeting to discuss the possibility of getting a larger bus to transport the student to school in the morning. The team met on October 17, 2024. The student currently rides a “Turtle Top” bus which is a smaller wheelchair accessible bus in the morning. In the afternoon, the student rides a larger “Cutaway” wheelchair accessible bus.

Recently, the student has been leaving their wheelchair at school and using crutches to get on and off the bus. This has not been an issue when the student rides the larger afternoon bus, but the student’s parent indicated the smaller bus has posed difficulty in the morning, sharing that the student feels the bus is more difficult to enter based on the student’s perception that the entrance and seating are narrower. The district shared photos and measurement differences between the smaller and larger bus. The large “Cutaway” bus has a doorway width measuring 30.5 inches and seat width measuring 18 inches. The small “Turtle Top” bus has a doorway width measuring 31 inches and seat width measuring 34.5 inches. Both buses have a wheelchair accessible ramp and space for wheelchair storage.

The student’s parent was also concerned about the length of the student’s bus ride due to the student’s seizure condition. The district was able to reduce the student’s bus ride from 16 to 12 minutes in the afternoon by ensuring the student was the first to be dropped off but was unable to decrease the morning ride of 20 minutes.

In addition, the district offered the student’s parent several additional options including providing reimbursement to the parent if they would like to personally transport the student, having the student use their wheelchair and the accessible lift to board and deboard the bus, and providing a staff member to ride with the student to support the student’s boarding and deboarding via the wheelchair ramp. The student’s parent rejected all of the options offered by the district. The district also offered to have the physical therapist who works with the student ride the bus to gather data on how best to address the parent’s concerns regarding the student, but the student’s parent declined that suggestion as well.

The district has continued to make transportation available to the student in accordance with the requirements in the IEP. The district also held an IEP team meeting to address the parent’s transportation concerns and made several suggestions to address them and provided the parent prior written notice of their determinations regarding the parent’s request. The district properly implemented the student’s IEP regarding specialized transportation.

 

This concludes our review of this complaint. This decision is final for the IDEA State Complaint process. These issues may be addressed through other dispute resolutions, including mediation and due process hearings. For more information, visit the department’s website at http://dpi.wi.gov/sped/dispute-resolution or contact the special education team at (608) 266-1781.