School transport | Disabled children left behind

As a new school year approaches when buses threaten not to pass, many parents are preparing to play taxi drivers. For those who have children with special needs, it’s one more tile that falls on an often busy daily life.

Marie-Eve Morasse
The Press

“It complicates our lives, to make a change. »

Starting Friday, Isabelle Perrin is preparing to lose several hours in traffic, crossing the island of Montreal from north to south, morning and evening, in the middle of rush hour.

Her 18-year-old son Thomas attends the Irénée-Lussier specialized school, located in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district of Montreal. This school welcomes 250 students aged 12 to 21 who have a moderate, severe or profound intellectual disability.

Like many others, the parents of this school learned this week that “despite the intensive negotiations carried out for several months”, the center of services school of Montreal (CSSDM) is without contract with the majority of its carriers.

Christine Landry, whose 20-year-old daughter also attends Irénée-Lussier school, is caught in an administrative maze a few days before the start of the school year.

“It’s crazy,” she said.

Fannie was placed this summer in a residential resource located in Anjou, on the territory of the Pointe-de-l’Île school service centre. Her mother must re-register her for the transportation service of this school service centre. What she has been trying in vain to do for ten days.

She still doesn’t know how her daughter will get to school. “The fact that carriers still haven’t signed contracts adds a layer of complexity,” the mother said.

“What did they do this summer? »

Mother of two autistic boys aged 17 and 19 who attend different special schools, Johanne Leduc says she cannot “split herself in two” to drive her boys home.

“You have to remember that students with special needs are rarely educated in their neighborhood,” says Ms.^me Leduc, who lives in Lachine.

Who did what this summer in negotiations with school carriers? she asks. “When you know it’s going to be hot, you plan ahead,” says M^me The Duke.

Her 17-year-old son, who is hanging on to finish high school, risks not being able to go to school if transport is not offered.

On the eve of the start of the school year, the idea of ​​being deprived of transport “for an indefinite period” darkens the happiness of returning to school for disabled students, notes Isabelle Perrin.

“These are children who don’t have many social networks: their friends are school. It’s their life, that’s where it’s at. I find it terrible to think of young people who are waiting for the start of the school year and who will not be able to experience it, ”says M^me Perrin, who offered to transport classmates of her son.

Still deadlock in several regions

Less than a week ago, Quebec welcomed the conclusion of an agreement in principle with school carriers. In fact, many of them have still not signed a contract with the school service centres, judging the offer insufficient.

Again Wednesday, many school service centers, including Laval and Grandes-Seigneuries, on the South Shore of Montreal, advised parents that unless an agreement is reached in the coming days, they should organize for the transport of their children.

Bus or not, school in person there will be, we warn.

Gaétan Dupras, he wonders how he will be able to go to work if he has to take his autistic daughter back to high school located 20 minutes from the house, in Beauharnois.

The Vallée-des-Tisserands school service center informed him on Wednesday that the carriers had refused the offer on the table.

“If it’s not settled next week, my employer will have to accept that I work four hours a day. He can call the minister [de l’Éducation] to tell him that his employees have to work more than that, ”jokes Gaétan Dupras.

Last Friday, Jean-François Roberge felt that the agreement in principle concluded with the carriers favored “greater stability in the school transport sector”.