Two Boston city councilors are planning to demand a hearing with public school officials after an “unacceptable” situation involving a varsity baseball team that was left stranded without district transportation to its first game of the season.
Councilors Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy will file a hearing order ahead of next week’s meeting to discuss Boston Public Schools transportation challenges with student-athletes, what’s working and what changes need to be made to ensure all students get to their game or practice safely and on time, Flynn said Tuesday.
“It’s unacceptable that school buses don’t arrive for these student-athletes,” said Flynn, who represents a district that includes the affected South Boston school. “As we go into the budget season with the mayor’s office and superintendent, we have to ask difficult questions about how we’re supporting our student-athletes because leaving students stranded is hurtful and unnecessary, and we can do better.”
Flynn said he reached out to offices of the mayor and superintendent of schools, both of which relayed that they’re reviewing the situation that occurred on Tuesday, when, according to the two councilors and a parent, a district bus failed to show up without explanation to transport varsity baseball players from the Excel High School in South Boston to a 4 p.m. game at the Healy Field in Jamaica Plain.
District officials disputed the lack of notification.
The bus also failed to show up at the BCLA-McCormack School in Dorchester, which shares a baseball team with Excel, forcing student-athletes from the South Boston school to hop on an MBTA bus at Andrew station to make it to the game on time, according to a parent of a 17-year-old Excel senior who plays for the team.
“Thankfully, the 16 bus came and they got to take that to the field, but if not, they would have had to take the train and that’s just unacceptable,” the 54-year-old parent, Tricia Gillis, told the Herald. “You want kids off the street and playing sports and doing the right thing, and you’re not helping out.”
Gillis said the problem is not an isolated issue. There were times during the fall soccer season and last year’s spring baseball season where there was a lack of anticipated transportation, leaving her in a situation where she had to drive her son and some of his teammates to games, or they had to take public transit.
On some days, games had to be postponed for lack of transportation. Some of the school’s baseball players have stated that they may not finish the season if the problems persist, she said.
“It’s just not fair,” Gillis said, noting that the last-minute scrambling leads to the student-athletes being “exhausted” by the time they make it to the game.
While Gillis is under the impression that district transportation is guaranteed for away games for students at her son’s South Boston high school, the two councilors say there is a bit of uncertainty as to whether that is the case and will be seeking clarity about how that varies across the school district in their hearing order.
The district did promise that a bus would be there at 6:15 p.m. to take the students back to their respective schools after the game, which Gillis credited Murphy for, after reaching out to her office for help.
“Last-minute accidents can happen, but they were not communicating with them,” Murphy said. “This does happen across the system. You hear stories where teams are just not picked up and there’s definitely times when there’s no transportation provided ever and we already know that ahead of time, which is a different issue.”
In prior years, a shortage of drivers was causing buses to be unavailable at times for sports teams, but last summer the district reported it was fully staffed, and Murphy believes the current issues are due to a lack of coordination.
“It’s frustrating,” she said. “We need to get this right for our kids.”
BPS officials said Tuesday night, however, that the problem came down to the district being unable to handle the day’s high volume of transportation requests, and that what occurred at Excel was an isolated incident and not due to a driver shortage.
Thirty to 35 buses is typically the operational limit per day, and on Tuesday, there were 52 requested athletics trips, district spokesman Max Baker said. He also disputed the councilors’ claims, saying that BPS transportation and athletics communicated with the team and coach that there was not a bus available for transportation to the game. One was made available after the game.
“Access to athletics is an essential component of a high-quality student experience and we work every day to ensure that our teams are supported,” Superintendent of Schools Mary Skipper said in a statement. “Unfortunately, due to an unusually high number of requests for transportation today, we were unable to provide a bus to the game. We appreciate our team’s flexibility and effort to make it to their game on time this afternoon.”
