‘It’s disgusting’: Students in wheelchairs left for hours amid RI school-bus woes
by: Eli Sherman, Hannah Cotter
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — Uncovered routes. Insufficient drivers. Missed pickups. Students in wheelchairs waiting for hours.
These are just some of the problems to have surfaced so far during a tumultuous first week for Rhode Island’s newly contracted school-bus company, Dattco Motorcoach, according to multiple parents and a corrective-action letter sent to the company on Friday.
“It’s disgusting,” said Sam Cosenza, a Warwick mother whose 4-year-old son in a wheelchair wasn’t picked up by Dattco. “For someone whose kid is four and just starting in a school system, this is not a great way to start the school year.”
After the bus never showed up, Cosenza said she tried calling Dattco dozens of times, leaving several voicemails and never getting a call back. She began searching online to try and figure out what was going on and then began calling local and state officials.
“It just never showed up at all,” she said. “Yesterday, I found out it didn’t show up for the two other kids who are in wheelchairs on his route.”
The R.I. Department of Education is now putting Dattco on a corrective action plan, as state officials were left scrambling to try and figure out transportation leading up to the first day of school and throughout the first week.
“They promised that they would be able to deliver and up to this point they have not,” Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green said Friday during a taping of WPRI 12’s Newsmakers. “We’re not going to accept that.”
The state earlier this year hired Dattco to cover the majority of statewide routes after a competitive bidding process. The Connecticut-based company won the three-year, $20 million contract over Rhode Island’s former contractor, First Student.
Leading up to the first day of school, however, state officials were forced to go back to First Student to ask them to cover at least 26 routes because Dattco didn’t have the resources, according to state officials.
“They need to deliver,” Infante-Green said. “If not, we are in our right to end the contract. We are being very serious with them. They have a few more days to deliver and if not we’re going to take action.”
In the letter sent to Dattco Chief Operating Officer Kyle DeVivo on Friday, state officials said the company had tried to have drivers double-up on some routes, which “would result in students arriving and departing school up to 2.5 hours late.”
“Even routes that do run miss picking up some students, which shows a complete communication breakdown at Dattco,” Deputy Commissioner Lisa Odom-Villella wrote in the letter.
“Dattco internal communications appear broken, where information is not disseminated in any coordinated or efficient manner,” she added. “For example, your plan to minimize disruptions was not followed by Dattco staff at the bus yards.”
On Friday, DeVivo acknowledged the problems that have happened over the first week, and he said the company is working to fix them. He said a lot of challenges have come up in the six months since they were awarded the state contract, calling it a big transition.
“We have certainly not been prepared for every single route that we received,” DeVivo told Target 12. “We know that we have improvements to make in the coming weeks.”
DeVivo also said the company has struggling with staffing, and he noted Connecticut drivers can’t pick up routes in Rhode Island unless they’re licensed here — even if they live right over the border.
“We have dozens of spare drivers that we would love to use here in Rhode Island,” he said.
Dattco is based in New Britain, Connecticut. According to its website, it shuttles 140,000 students across Connecticut and Rhode Island daily.
“I’m livid about this,” Infante-Green told 12 News in an interview after Newsmakers. “This is unacceptable. I have kids. I would be so upset if this were happening. And that’s why we didn’t wait. This is the first week of school.”
If Dattco doesn’t fix the issues outlined in the letter within 10 days, state officials said the company will be violation of its contract, giving the state “sufficient cause for the cancellation, rescission or termination of the contract.”
“As a result of Dattco’s non-performance, we are receiving an unprecedented number of emails, phone calls, and messages from parents and school administrators,” Odom-Villella wrote. “These issues must be corrected immediately, or RIDE will transfer additional routes to other vendors and/or pursue available legal remedies.”
DeVivo said the company is working to get more drivers properly licensed in Rhode Island, improve communication and he pledged to make all changes needed to ensure routes are covered in the future.
“I don’t want to sit here and make excuses for why we haven’t provided the transportation that we need to provide,” he said. “I’m here to find solutions and make sure that we can provide this service for parents and students.”
Eli Sherman (esherman@wpri.com) is a Target 12 investigative reporter for 12 News. Connect with him on Twitter and on Facebook.
Tim White, Ted Nesi and Alexandra Leslie contributed to this report.