Mayor de Blasio called the city’s ongoing school bus fiasco “unacceptable” Monday – and blamed individual transportation companies as opposed to City Hall or the Department of Education.
“It is not acceptable for a bus company not to do their job,” de Blasio said on NY1, adding that offending bus firms could see their lucrative city contracts cancelled outright.
“The chancellor has been very clear,” he said. “We do not accept that and we are going to be very tough on any company that does not do their job, and these kids should not be put through this.”
The new school year has been marred by nonstop transportation gaffes – with late and no show buses, multi-hour treks to school, and an avalanche of seething calls to the DOE’s complaint hotline.
The debacle has marred the start of schools Chancellor Richard Carranza’s first full-year in charge of the nation’s largest school system.
Carranza has repeatedly reminded parents that the chaos is unacceptable – but problems have persisted over the course of two weeks.
The DOE announced Monday that Grandpa’s bus company – whose performance has drawn the most scorn – had four of its lines reassigned to another firm.
Since the first day of class, the DOE’s transport hotline has received 82,225 calls – compared to 68,620 during the same period last year, according to the DOE.