Amaranta Viera gets her son Nate ready for the school bus, which arrives before dawn. Shoes and socks, and then breakfast, to fuel up for a long day. Nate has autism and ADHD, which can make all of these tasks a little harder.

“He can feed himself, but he doesn’t eat very quickly,” Viera said as she fed him forkfuls of eggs and sliced cherry tomatoes.

Nate’s disabilities also require him to receive special services and instruction, which he gets at P.S. 15 in Red Hook. The city is required to bring him there from his home in Ridgewood, Queens, on the school bus. But come the first day of school, Nate’s bus didn’t show up. It didn't show up the second day, or the third... or at all, for four weeks.


What You Need To Know

  • Parents at a Panel for Educational Policy meeting this week used the discussion of bus-related contracts to share their frustration with school bus service

  • Among them was Amaranta Viera, whose son Nate has special needs and requires a school bus ride

  • But for the first month of class, the bus never came — forcing his mom to spend more than $1,000 on taxis

  • She's still waiting for a reimbursement from the city

“No explanation from anybody in a position of authority. The answer from the attendant was, 'We don’t have a driver,'” Viera said.

School bus driver shortages have plagued districts across the nation, and while the New York City Department of Education has insisted it’s not a problem here, Nate went a month without a school bus.

Until the DOE could provide car service directly, Viera was instructed to send him to school in a taxi and seek reimbursement. Even when they did provide her car service, the system used to dispatch it often could not process her Queens address, due to a dash in the street number.

On those days, when the car never arrived, she once again had to call and pay for a taxi herself.

Viera is waiting on more than $1,000 in reimbursement from the city. It’s money she and her husband don’t really have to spare: They’re freelance musicians hit hard by the pandemic.

“We’ll see if we get that money any time in the future. Rent is coming due, so be good to get that,” she said.

The DOE finally provided Nate with his mandated school bus last week. It arrives outside his door at 6:40 a.m. each morning.

But between the distance he travels to school and the number of stops along his route, Nate is sometimes on the bus for close to two hours each way. Like many children with disabilities, he wears pull-ups. Last week, he spent that nearly two-hour trip home in a soiled one.

“It was just really, really, upsetting. I was enraged, in fact,” she said.

It took Viera weeks, and hours of emails and phone calls, just to get bus service — time she worries other parents whose children have disabilities simply don’t have.

Now, she’s on a mission to get his route shortened. She's relieved her freelance schedule has allowed her the time to stay on top of the situation, but like many other parents of special needs children, she can't pay to fix it.

“We don’t have the resources that wealthier families have, who can send their kids to private school, who can have someone drive their child to school. I mean, we’re at the mercy of the DOE,” she said.

A DOE spokeswoman said the city would look for efficiencies on Nate’s route, but did not explain why it took a month to provide him with bus service.

“We apologize that this family experienced these issues, and we are following up with them to address their concerns and make sure they are reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses. We work closely with bus vendors and families to provide consistent and efficient transportation — anything less is unacceptable,” spokeswoman Jenna Lyle said.

Families having problems with bus service can call the Office of Pupil Transportation at 718-392-8855 to escalate the situation, the department said.