NO GO: Zenada Curiel, with son Edgar yesterday in Washington Heights, says she can’t get him to school on public transportation. (
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Thirteen-year-old Edgar Curiel has spent the past 3 1/2 weeks in one of two places at his home — his wheelchair or his bed.
Since a crushing strike by school-bus drivers and matrons began Jan. 16, the Washington Heights teen has been unable to attend PS 183M, near West 168th Street, where he gets therapy and takes classes.
That’s because his working mom has been among thousands of parents who can’t use any of the city’s few alternative-transportation options — because either they require an adult to chaperone the trip to and from school or can’t accommodate a wheelchair.
“When he’s going to school, he’s always very happy to go,” his mom, Zenada, a phlebotomist, said in Spanish. “I’m not seeing that from him now.”
She has a family member take care of Edgar when she’s at work. When at home, she does her best to guide him through the physical and occupational exercises he normally gets at school.
“I am very hurt that I have to keep my child at home and cannot do anything about it,” she said.
Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union called the strike after the city removed job protections from school-bus contracts it put out to bid in late December.
Since the strike was called, both sides have only dug in their heels.
The union says it won’t end the strike until the protections — which ensure that drivers and matrons keep their jobs and salaries even if new bus contractors come in — are reinserted into the city’s bids.
The city Department of Education has said there’s nothing to discuss because a court deemed those protections — which are rare for employees of private companies to get from a municipality — to be illegal.
The standoff has kept thousands of students out of school and forced thousands of additional families to turn their lives upside down simply to ensure their kids make it to class.
Lenny Hickey, of Washington Heights, has been enduring an hourlong subway commute each way with his 16-year-old son, Luke, and his 11-year-old daughter, Maxine.
Because of the timing and locations of their schools, the dad has to let Luke, who has Down syndrome, walk alone for the four blocks from the subway stop to his school in Greenwich Village.
“There is a callousness to the union not really understanding what we go through day to day. It is a struggle,” said Hickey, who works in Midtown.
“I’d just like them to end the strike. Otherwise, if there is no resolution, this will end up being a nightmare.”
The threat of a prolonged strike also has advocates calling on the city to do more to help ensure that affected students — particularly those with the greatest challenges — are able to get to and from school.
Despite the city’s attempts to disperse MetroCards and reimburse parents for driving or taxiing their kids to school, attendance at special-education schools has been relatively low.
“They’ve done a couple of small things . . . but they didn’t set anything up for many families that was going to work for them,” said Maggie Moroff, of Advocates for Children.
She said that one family told her they tried calling 20 car services in The Bronx from a list provided by the Education Dept. before they found one that admitted being part of a prepaid ride program.
“The frustration is that it’s all being put on the families and on the kids,” said Moroff.