Mayor calls for investigation into bus drivers' absences
Many students left stranded
More than 680 Boston students missed school yesterday after 70 bus drivers suddenly called in sick or took a personal day, triggering a round of finger-pointing between the city and the drivers' union.
Union officials blamed the school system and its contractor for not employing enough standby drivers to staff the uncovered routes. Under the union contract, the school system, which provides bus services through a private company, is supposed to maintain a crew of standby drivers that equals 14 percent of the 629 regular drivers - or 88 drivers. But the standby level has hovered at around only 10 percent in recent years, Boston School Bus Drivers Union officials said.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino, however, expressed skepticism about the massive absences and called for a full investigation of every driver who called in sick. Superintendent Carol Johnson said she plans to ask First Student Inc., the contractor for the district's bus transportation, to review every driver's excuse "to ensure there is no abuse of sick leave or vacation time."
Neither Menino nor school officials, however, explained what standard would be used to determine whether the absences were legitimate.
"Today's situation is unacceptable and unfair to both the parents and children that may have missed a day of school, or work, because some bus drivers decided not to show up for work," Menino said in a statement.
The school system plans to fine First Student but district officials could not estimate an amount last night. The district had to cancel a dozen bus routes, affecting about 30 schools across the city.
The company said in a statement that the high absentee rate was due to the weekend storm, which was followed by icy conditions yesterday morning, and that many of the drivers reported to work yesterday afternoon.
Union officials bristled at the suggestion that drivers were not legitimately ill and denied any coordinated effort to skip work. Each driver is allowed five personal days, two of which require 48-hour notice and three that can be taken any time. On an average day, between 20 and 45 drivers call in sick, district officials said.
"We take very seriously our commitment, and we resent in the strongest terms any suggestion otherwise," said Stevan Kirschbaum, chairman of the union's grievance committee. "It becomes this exercise in finger-pointing and assigning blame when in fact there is a massive degree of mismanagement going on with Boston school bus transportation."
Had the full standby force been available, students would not have been stranded yesterday and all routes would have been covered, said Frantz Mendes, president of the school bus drivers union.
"For weeks we've been telling them this is the right thing to do," Mendes said. "If they had listened to us, that would have prevented what took place this morning."
School system officials say the city has about 90 drivers on stand-by, but 27 of them are covering for drivers out on long-term absences, leaving only 63 drivers to substitute for day-to-day absences. The union and the school system disagree whether drivers covering long-term absences should be counted among the stand-by force.
According to a district spokesman, the school system has been trying to create a pool of substitute drivers who would be paid only if they were called in. Standby drivers, in contrast, report every day and are paid for five hours of work regardless of whether they are needed.
Coincidentally, First Student settled a grievance yesterday afternoon with the bus drivers union, which had been fighting for a dozen of its standby drivers to report in the morning instead of the afternoon. As of today, those drivers will begin reporting to work at 5:15 a.m., instead of at 12:30 p.m., Mendes said.
Yesterday was the second school day that hundreds of Boston children missed since the Thursday snowstorm that snarled traffic in the city and led to some school buses not delivering children home until 11:30 at night. Schools were closed Friday to clear sidewalks, parking lots, and school yards of snow. About 33,000 of the district's 67,000 students ride school buses.
Parents were notified at about 6:45 a.m. by an automated message yesterday if their child's bus route was cancelled. Students who missed school because of transportation will be excused, Johnson said.
"It's so irresponsible," said Glenda Guerra, whose daughter attends kindergarten at the Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Chinatown. Guerra and six other parents were waiting at their East Boston bus stop for more than half an hour until it got so late and cold that she piled the children into a friend's van and drove them to school.
Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com. 