Washington D.C. parents who have kids with disabilities are now able to select transportation preferences for the upcoming school year via an online portal.
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education released a statement on June 25 by State Superintendent Dr. Antoinette S. Mitchell, encouraging parents and guardians with children who have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that lists yellow bus transportation as a service to log on to the new OSSE Parent Portal. This online tool empowers parents to directly select transportation preferences for the upcoming school year.
According to the statement, the OSSE Parent Portal opened on June 9, and parents and guardians are encouraged to sign up by submitting their transportation preferences by July 11.
“By putting parents directly in the driver’s seat, we are not only streamlining the process but also placing decision-making power where it belongs, at the family level,” said Mitchell via the statement.
Once parents log into the portal, they will have the option to choose their preferred language from among six options and select from three transportation options: No Transportation Needed, Parent Stipend Program (available to students who have previously utilized OSSE transportation services, except for students in pre-K through third grade students, for whom the stipend option is automatically available), and OSSE-DOT Transportation.
The process should take less than five minutes. Once parents’ information is completed, transportation details need to be confirmed, including any necessary accommodations such as arrangements for a one-to-one aide, school nurse or booster seat as per the student’s IEP. The new portal reportedly ensures accuracy of transportation needs and allocates buses to students in critical need of transportation services. For more information, parents can visit this link.
Tami Jackson of the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities describes how unpaid family caregivers could be affected by proposed Medicaid cuts in the Republican budget reconciliation package in Washington, D.C. Janet Zander of the Greater Wisconsin Agency on Aging Resources, seated at right, also spoke. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
Among the many people whose health care could be in jeopardy from possible Medicaid cuts, one group may be even less visible than the rest.
Federal fallout
As federal funding and systems dwindle, states are left to decide how and
whether to make up the difference. Read the latest >
For elderly residents as well as children and adults with disabilities whose health care is covered by Medicaid, family members who help with their care will also be affected by the proposals coming from Republican members of Congress.
“Medicaid is the primary thing that supports family caregivers,” said Tami Jackson, policy analyst for the Wisconsin Board for People with Development Disabilities (BPDD), in a presentation to social workers Thursday in Dodgeville.
The person under the caregiver’s care could be living at home, but will probably still require long-term support of some kind — support covered by Medicaid, Jackson said. Medicare provides coverage only for a limited time, such as when a person has come home after being hospitalized.
Private long-term care insurance plans “are unaffordable and they have not been workable for many years,” she added. “So Medicaid is it — and we happen to have a lot of people who need long-term care.”
Jackson and Janet Zander of the Greater Wisconsin Agency on Aging Resources met with Iowa County social workers in Dodgeville Thursday to explain the likely effect of Medicaid cuts that are part of the budget reconciliation bill that has passed the U.S. House and is now in the Senate.
The GOP majorities of both houses want to pass the legislation so they can extend tax cuts enacted in 2017, when President Donald Trump was in his first term. Those tax cuts have been found to heavily benefit wealthy Americans. Without action they will expire at the end of 2025.
Cutting Medicaid, hiking other costs
Medicaid is the single largest source of federal funds in the state budget — about $9 billion a year.
Under the U.S. House version of the budget reconciliation bill, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) has projected between 71,000 and 111,000 Wisconsinites would lose Medicaid coverage, including more than 3,800 people with disabilities and 2,400 older adults. The state’s federal Medicaid revenues would be cut by $501 million to $663 million.
The Medicaid cuts on the scale of those in current iterations of the bill “are too large to not cause states to have to cut many things in their state budget,” Jackson said.
The bill’s Medicaid cuts as well as changes it would make to the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplace — including ending subsidies that have made marketplace plans more affordable for lower-income people — would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 16 million in the next decade, according to theCongressional Budget Office.
“Whether you’re a caregiver, whether you’re on Medicaid, whether you’re working for somebody who’s on Medicaid,” everyone will be affected by 16 million more uninsured people, Zander said.
With more uncompensated care for hospitals and providers, she predicted that the cost for other payers will increase.
“We’re going to see premiums for any kind of [health] insurance skyrocket — the employer’s portion, the employee’s portion,” Zander said.
Reduced Medicaid care, more unpaid care
Family caregivers feel Medicaid’s impact in several ways. For many people who are elderly or have disabilities it enables them to get paid, professional care at home. If that care is cut back, that means more work for the unpaid family member.
“Those paid caregivers — they’re paid for by Medicaid dollars and there aren’t enough of them. There haven’t been enough of them for years,” Jackson said.
If Medicaid cutbacks reduce the pay for those caregivers, the workforce that is already underpaid is likely to be even harder to find — making access to paid care even more difficult, she added, to the point where “it’s either the unpaid caregiver or nothing.”
Family caregivers who take on more unpaid care responsibilities may have to cut back on their own paid jobs.
“The amount of people who are reducing, limiting [work hours or] leaving the workforce because there isn’t a stable, paid caregiving workforce to provide what they need is huge,” Jackson said.
A BPDD survey found that for unpaid family caregivers in Wisconsin providing or coordinating care or filling in for missing care workers took 80% of their time. Two-thirds said caregiving had a negative impact on their family finances and 50% said they left jobs or reduced hours to provide care because there were no care workers to hire.
Unpaid caregivers who leave the workforce not only lose income but reduce the earnings that contribute to their Social Security retirement, Jackson said.
Kristin Voss, a former public school teacher, gave up her job because of her responsibilities as the guardian and family caregiver for her adult daughter. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
Kristin Voss, a Madison public school teacher for 24 years, had to retire to help manage and care for her 23-year-old daughter. Her daughter has epilepsy, autism and an intellectual disability and “functions at about anywhere from 6 to 12 years old,” Voss said in a panel discussion that was part of Thursday’s presentation.
Until her daughter was 21, she was entitled to public education, where she got “tons of support” including in her transition period that started when she was 18, Voss said. At 21, those supports were no longer available, however.
Her daughter enrolled in the state’s self-directed long-term care program called IRIS. The program includes a caseworker, but Voss also has responsibility as her daughter’s family caregiver, helping to manage day-to-day changes in her daughter’s placement and activities.
“I don’t mind doing these things, but there’s things that I don’t always know about and I’m not always prepared for,” Voss said. “And so, no, I couldn’t do this and be a public school teacher.”
Instead, she has put together a collection of part-time positions that give her flexibility that she needs — although none of them have health insurance, Voss said.
Unpaid caregivers ‘untangling the mess’
Some unpaid caregivers who leave the workforce may also turn to Medicaid for their health coverage because they can’t afford health insurance or work at a job that doesn’t provide insurance.
“About 4 million people nationally are unpaid caregivers who are in Medicaid themselves,” Jackson said.
Among the changes proposed for Medicaid is a requirement for participants in the program to prove every six months that they are still eligible for the program, instead of once a year, the current standard. Another change proposed is to add a work requirement for certain Medicaid participants.
Both of those changes will mean more paperwork. “Unpaid caregivers are the folks that are keeping people who are in Medicaid programs already,” Jackson said — by filling out the forms that are required to prove the person is still eligible.
“Often these processes are so complex,” Jackson said. And when something goes wrong, because of an error in an eligibility form or a billing mistake, family caregivers “are the people who are untangling the mess.”
The current version of the bill in the Senate gives caregivers an exemption from the work requirement — but Jackson said the definition has raised concerns.
The current proposal limits the exemption to people who are caring for a person under the age of 14. National advocates have said that “really narrows that caregiver exemption and doesn’t quite fit with the reality that most unpaid caregivers are providing care for people with disabilities and older adults,” Jackson said.
Including exemptions in the proposed work requirement provisions also doesn’t necessarily reduce the paperwork.
“You either have to prove you’re meeting the work requirements, or you have to prove that you’re exempt for those requirements,” Jackson said. “And if you’re a caregiver who’s in Medicaid, you have to do that for yourself and probably the person you’re supporting.”
Wisconsin native Lori Schneider is the first person with MS to complete the Seven Summits, a capstone achievement for any serious mountaineer. Schneider says the reason she got into mountaineering in the first place is her dad.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. -HopSkipDrive today announced a significant expansion in its ability to meet the transportation needs of all students, enabling schools and school districts to seamlessly and directly book rides for students needing wheelchair-accessible vehicles, Rider Assistants, and car seats. With this development, school districts around the country will be able to solve even more student transportation challenges through HopSkipDrive’s unmatched technology-driven safety approach and operational expertise, and can learn more with a sign-up here.
“All children, especially those with disabilities, deserve a safe, reliable ride in a vehicle that meets their specific needs with adults who are fully prepared to support them,” said Joanna McFarland, CEO and Co-Founder of HopSkipDrive. “Rising chronic absenteeism rates make clear that existing school transportation industry options leave behind students with unique needs.”
With more than 5 million rides across 95 million safe miles completed on its platform, HopSkipDrive continues to raise the bar for student transportation. The company supports over 600 school districts by supplementing yellow buses with a network of extensively vetted CareDrivers — local caregivers on wheels — through a care-centered transportation marketplace.
With the launch of these three new transportation offerings this fall, HopSkipDrive will provide schools and school districts with even more resources, all backed by rigorous safety standards and industry-leading Safe Ride TechnologyTM. Transportation teams can use HopSkipDrive’s ride management platform, RideIQ, to easily and simply book, track, and manage all rides in one place, and staff can get full visibility with Daily Queue, which provides a customized view for all HopSkipDrive rides for students at their school location.
Wheelchair-Accessible Vehicles and Rider Assistants
Following a successful pilot earlier this year, HopSkipDrive is expanding the availability of Wheelchair-Accessible Vehicle rides and Rider Assistants to all cities in which the company operates. These rides are fulfilled by CarePartners, local professionals who undergo HopSkipDrive’s rigorous and comprehensive certification process, including name- and fingerprint-based background checks, clearing child abuse and neglect screenings where available, and enrolling in continuous criminal monitoring. Like all CareDrivers, they complete HopSkipDrive onboarding and a virtual orientation course. CarePartner drivers for Wheelchair-Accessible Vehicle rides also undergo driving record screens, vehicle inspections, and more.
To meet the needs of students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and those who thrive most when an additional adult is in the vehicle, HopSkipDrive offers a Rider Assistant for schools to book to join the CareDriver or CarePartner driver on the ride. The Rider Assistant will provide informed and compassionate support for the rider when needed.
HopSkipDrive continues to lead in forward-thinking safety measures by directly managing driver and Rider Assistant vetting, onboarding, and compliance. This unique approach sets HopSkipDrive apart in the student transportation industry, offering schools valuable features such as the Safe Ride Support system and enhanced Must Be Met process to support the development of new rider services all delivered with the company’s signature tracking and notification systems.
Car Seat Program
In select cities, schools and school districts can select HopSkipDrive’s car seat program for students whose height and weight, typically between the ages of four to six, require a car seat. CareDrivers can only opt in to fulfill these rides after completing comprehensive car seat safety education and using only the forward-facing car seat model approved by HopSkipDrive and Safe Kids Worldwide, the leading organization for childhood injury prevention.
HopSkipDrive collaborated with the industry’s leading child safety experts to design and develop the safest possible ride experience. Britney Lombard, who has spent more than a decade as a Safe Kids Worldwide certified Child Passenger Safety Instructor and performed thousands of car seat checks during her tenure, now leads HopSkipDrive’s car seat program. The HopSkipDrive Safety Advisory Council, composed of six leading experts in transportation safety, also played a key role in advising the development of the car seat program to confirm protocols meet the highest standards in the industry.
Compliance is a core principle of the car seat program. Ahead of the implementation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s new safety standards, HopSkipDrive proactively selected a car seat model that goes above and beyond these requirements in consultation with the company’s expert advisors.
Safety Leadership, Including In-Ride Recording
HopSkipDrive continues to invest in leading the industry in safety with over 50 products, features, and initiatives woven throughout the ride experience. Over the past year, the company announced nearly a dozen new safety initiatives, including offering in-ride cameras through Safe Ride InSight.
Schools and school districts can request dashcam recording for rides with CareDrivers who have installed SafeRide InSight, which combines visual monitoring with audio recording. HopSkipDrive uses this technology along with advanced telematics to create a solution that’s unmatched in the student transportation industry. First piloted in Arizona and Colorado, the company is continuing to scale this technology to additional markets over the coming months.
About HopSkipDrive
HopSkipDrive is a technology company that solves complex transportation challenges where there is a heightened need for safety, access, and care. HopSkipDrive is modernizing the $30 billion school transportation industry through two core solutions: a care-centered transportation marketplace and industry-leading transportation intelligence platform, RouteWise AI. HopSkipDrive’s marketplace supplements school buses and existing transportation options by connecting kids to highly vetted caregivers on wheels, such as grandparents, babysitters, and nurses in local communities. RouteWise AI helps schools and districts address critical challenges, including budget cuts, bus driver shortages, and reaching climate goals. HopSkipDrive has supported over 10,000 schools across 17 states, with over 600 school district partners. More than 5 million rides over 95 million miles have been completed through HopSkipDrive since the company was founded in 2014 by three working mothers.
Each year, student transportation professionals gather in Frisco, Texas, for a transformative event designed to inspire and equip attendees with practical solutions that enhance safety for students with disabilities and for preschoolers. This year’s conference will feature inspiring keynotes, engaging educational sessions, opportunities for hands-on training, and networking events.
The conference will open with a Welcome Party at Topgolf the Colony on Nov. 6. Over the course of the next five days, attendees will hear from industry experts on various aspects of safely transporting students with disabilities as well as preschoolers and how to empower transportation staff to care for their most vulnerable student riders.
Three keynote sessions are currently planned. “Developmentally Appropriate Safety Education” presented by Michele Gay, co-founder of Safe and Sound Schools and the mother of Sandy Hook shooting victim Josephine Grace Gay, opens the education on Friday, Nov. 7. Special education attorney Betsey Helfrich will share recent and pertinent legal information and summaries of case law Saturday, Nov. 8. Sunday, Nov. 9, will feature the presentation “Fostering Inclusive Practices & Support Accessibility in Education” by Glenna Wright-Gallo, who was the assistant secretary of education for special education and rehabilitative services at the U.S. Department of Education in 2023 and 2024 and is now a vice president of policy for education technology company Everway.
Training classes include the eight-hour, NHTSA-sponsored Child Passenger Safety on School Bus seminar, the Wheelchair Securement Boot Camp Training & Certification by AMF-Bruns, the Hands-on School Bus Evacuations for Students with Special Needs & Preschoolers Training, and the roadeo competition sponsored by Q’Straint/Sure-Lok, which also provides wheelchair securement training to roadeo contestants as well as conference attendees before the competition on Saturday.
The Safety & Technology Product Demonstration/Special Needs Ride & Drive also returns this year as does the Trade Show and Tailgate Reception, featuring vendors showcasing their technology offerings to benefit transportation operations.
Register by Aug. 8 to save $200 on main conference registration with Super Early Bird Savings. Find conference dates, hotel information and exhibitor list at tsdconference.com.
Children at the Growing Tree child care in New Glarus. Wisconsin is one of only six states that doesn't put any money into early childhood education. (Photo by Kate Rindy)
Children are born into this world innocent. They did not choose their parents. They did not choose to be born into poverty. They do not get to choose if a parent is addicted to drugs or alcohol. Children do not get a choice to be born into an environment of neglect. Children do not choose to grow up in a home with violence. Children do not get a choice to be abused or assaulted. Children do not choose to be born with a disability. Children do not get to choose if they can access medical care. Children do not get a choice on whether they are even wanted or loved.
Adults do have choices. In Wisconsin, we have chosen to have a state where children are the largest demographic living in poverty. We have chosen to allow some children to live with constant hunger. We have chosen not to support children with disabilities. We are still choosing not to create systems to support children who have experienced adversity like abuse and neglect. We made the choice to create an education system based on the income of the people living in the community. We choose to allow children to be uncared for. We as a community have made these choices deliberately and without shame.
Consequently, we have chosen for those children to be less likely to graduate from high school, more likely to fail at a job, have poor health (which is connected to stress in the early years) and to be statistically more likely to be placed in the prison system.
We, as a state, have chosen to prioritize funding for prisons and spend nothing on early care and education, one of only six states that don’t invest a penny in early childhood programs, even though we know that when children have access to quality early education that they are more likely to graduate high school, have higher incomes, be healthier, and are less likely to enter the prison system. We have chosen to remove health care options for children by not expanding Badgercare. We are soon to be the only state that does not provide postpartum Medicaid, risking the lives of new mothers and increasing the likelihood that children will have to grow up without them. We have decided that children with disabilities will receive services not based on their actual needs, but based on the budget for special education, which our state keeps at the barest minimum.
We have chosen to make the word “welfare” into a bad word. Welfare by definition is the health,happiness and fortunes of a person or group. And we have chosen to deny the health,happiness and fortune of children in our state. Referring to a bipartisan push for Medicaid expansion to cover postpartum care, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has said he “cannot imagine supporting an expansion of welfare.” Why is providing welfareto support the health and wellbeing of children or anyone for that matter a negative concept?Why are we so afraid that if we support people in need that it somehow takes awayfrom us? For example, why would providing children with free lunches at school be a bad thing to do? Why would ensuring that children have access to medical care regardless of whethertheir parents can afford it or not be bad to do? Why would ensuring that children have access toquality care and education in their early years, regardless of their parents’ income, be a badthing? Why would ensuring that children with disabilities have access to the services they needbe bad? Why is it wrong to have systems in our state that ensure we aredoing everything we can to give all children the best opportunities to grow, thrive and becomeproductive members of our communities?
Rep. Vos and Joint Finance Committee co-chairs Sen.Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) all disagree with creating andfunding policies that support our children. Time and time again, they have voted down policiesthat would have provided support to children. They have continued to forgo our futureby not investing in our children. Instead, they invest in the wealthiest in our state and invest inour punitive prison systems. They invest in large businesses with expensive lobbyists who demand tax breaks and deregulation. They invest in those most likely to donate to their campaigns. Thesegrown-up white men cannot stand the idea of anyone, even a child, getting help from the state. If they had to pay for school lunch, they figure, so should everyone else. If theyhad to pay for their child’s medical visit, then so should everyone else. If they had to pay forchild care, then so should everyone else. They are incapable of seeing past their privileges.They cannot appreciate what it is like to be a child born into an environment that causes harm and the trajectory that puts the child on. However, they will certainly be therewhen that child becomes an adult and enters the prison system. They are more than willing topay for incarceration and punishment.
That’s not just financially irresponsible — we spend about four times as much to keep someone in prison as we spend on education — it’s inhumane, and it impoverishes our state and condemns children to unnecessary suffering and a bleak future.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) website for enrolling in Medicaid and other state benefits programs. (Screenshot)
Among changes to Medicaid tucked in the federal reconciliation bill that passed the U.S. House last week is one that requires participants in the state-federal health plan for the poor to prove they’re eligible every six months.
Wisconsin advocates said Tuesday the provision is likely to reduce Medicaid enrollment — not because people don’t qualify but because of administrative errors and confusion.
Under current state and federal law, people covered by Medicaid must have their eligibility confirmed every year. Eligibility depends on various factors, chief among them household income. People whose Medicaid services are tied to a disability undergo an annual evaluation to determine whether their disability still qualifies them.
“We already do a really good job about making sure that everybody who’s in Medicaid is already eligible to be there,” Tamara Jackson, policy analyst and legislative liaison for the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities, said in an interview.
Checking eligibility more frequently isn’t likely to uncover more people who are enrolled in Medicaid and don’t qualify, Jackson said: “It will lead to a different result because people who are eligible for the program are losing coverage because they didn’t get the paperwork in on time.”
“It’s going to probably result in kicking people off the program — some of it through error and some of it just benign neglect,” said Bobby Peterson, executive director of ABC for Health. The nonprofit is a public interest law firm that assists people navigating the health care system get coverage and address problems such as medical debt.
“It’s part of a blizzard of paperwork to keep people off the program,” Peterson said of the twice-yearly Medicaid eligibility test. “And it’s not necessarily going to be very effective in maintaining program integrity.”
He said Medicaid participants are already required to report changes in their income that could change whether they’re eligible.
“It’s calculated to deter people from staying with the [Medicaid] program,” Peterson said. “It’ll leave more people out and less people covered, more people uninsured.”
With fewer people covered by health insurance, that could lead to “higher rates of medical debt, higher rates of uncompensated care, and then the socialization and redistribution of all that medical debt onto everybody else’s [health care] bill,” Peterson said. “So, it’s a lose-lose proposition.”
The House Republican majority drafted the reconciliation legislation in order to extend tax cuts enacted in 2017 during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The bill’s tax cuts largely benefithigher-income households, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The bill’s spending cuts to Medicaid and other programs, including federal nutrition aid, were included to reduce the tax cuts’ impact on the federal deficit.
In Wisconsin, about 1.3 million people are covered by Medicaid, according to the state Department of Health Services (DHS). About 900,000 are enrolled in BadgerCare Plus, which provides primary health care for families and single adults with incomes below the federal poverty guidelines. Another 250,000 are in one of several Medicaid programs for long-term care for people with disabilities or the elderly, and the rest are in other specialized programs.
The change in how often Medicaid recipients must qualify for the program is just one of many changes in the program under the House reconciliation bill.
In areport produced in late April before the bill’s passage, the state Department of Health Services (DHS) calculated that its proposed Medicaid changes could cost Wisconsin up to $16.8 billion over the next date.
Current federal Medicaid regulationsforbid states from determining a person’s eligibility more often than once a year. The House reconciliation bill would effectively override that rule.
A requirement to check every Medicaid recipient’s eligibility twice a year was part of state legislation that Wisconsin Republican lawmakers introducedearlier this year. That bill was met with sweeping criticism at a public hearing in April andhas not advanced in the state Legislature.
Supporters of the change have argued that more should be done to reduce fraud in the Medicaid program. But health care experts contend that the Medicaid cuts in the House bill are unlikely to address genuine fraud.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government temporarily suspended the annual Medicaid renewal requirement to ensure that people had health coverage and would seek medical help if they felt sick.
“Obviously if there’s a public health emergency, you want to maintain connections and access to health care and coverage,” Peterson said. Some people may have been still covered under Medicaid after they were no longer eligible, he added, and some “didn’t even know they had Medicaid or BadgerCare Plus in addition to some private insurance at various times.”
Nevertheless, “it wasn’t like there was wide-scale fraud” in the Medicaid program, Peterson said. “There’s very little evidence of a lot of consumer-related fraud in the program.”
After 40 years of federal support, a University of Wisconsin-La Crosse program training teachers to provide physical education for students with disabilities will no longer receive a critical grant.
Two years ago, 5-year-old A.M., a child with autism, became the victim of bullying on the school bus he rode to elementary school in the Poudre School District of Fort Collins, Colorado. The perpetrator of A.M.’s abuse was not a fellow student, but a school bus attendant the district had hired to provide students like him with extra support.
Not only was A.M., whose full name is withheld in court documents, restrained in a school bus seat throughout the months-long abuse, his disability rendered him nonverbal, leaving him unable to ask for help or tell his parents what was happening.
The school board agreed to pay out $16.2 million on May 14 to settle a lawsuit filed by parents of A.M. and other students with disabilities who were abused by Tyler Zanella while being transported to and from school during the 2022-2023 school year.
Comparatively, the settlement is about 15 percent of the district’s $10.3 million transportation services budget for this past school year.
After voting to accept the settlement, Poudre school board president Kristen Draper said she hoped the amount would help foster healing and rebuild trust.
“This resolution represents our collective commitment to addressing the harm caused and to supporting the ongoing recovery and well-being of these students and their families,” Draper said.
A.M. was not Zanella’s only victim. In all, county prosecutors say the attendant abused 10 students that school year.
The district uncovered Zanella’s criminal history and a previous child abuse conviction during a background check before he was hired in August 2022. A.M.’s parents also voiced concern about the attendant throughout the school year, but their words did not prompt change until a teacher stepped in.
When A.M. came to class with red marks on his face, a teacher asked questions, prompting the school district to review camera footage and report the abuse to police.
Internal bus camera footage documented Zanella swearing at A.M., calling him names, and subjecting him to physical abuse, slapping, pinching, and pushing the restrained child dozens of times over several months. According to court documents, Zanella called A.M. a f—–,” “little sh–,” and said, “if A.M. were his kid, he would be dead by now because Mr. Zanella did not have that kind of patience.”
Zanella, 36, ultimately pleaded guilty to seven counts of assault on an at-risk person, as well as harassment, and child abuse. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison in April 2024.
He also had a previous misdemeanor child abuse conviction when he applied for the position at Poudre School District. Title 22 of the Colorado Revised Statutes lists felony child abuse as cause for termination or withholding employment.
David Lane, A.M.’s attorney, said in an email he was shocked that Zanella had been hired after school officials learned of his criminal history and that he had lied about it.
“It is utterly incomprehensible how a school district could allow a convicted child abuser to have access to utterly helpless children in this situation,” Lane wrote. “Ultimately, this governmental failure will cost the taxpayers millions of dollars and these innocent children have been severely damaged.”
Following the incident, the district spent $2 million on internal policies, which included hiring consultants at the Center for Effective School Operations, or CESO, to review the district’s policies. Among primary recommendations, CESO suggested the district develop procedures for camera footage requests and supervisor audits.
In a school board presentation on the transportation review findings last summer, Chief Operations Officer Jeff Connell reflected on how school bus driver shortages led to mechanics and supervisors driving buses, and many employees taking shortcuts.
Connell said the district was hiring an integration services transportation manager dedicated to coordinating support for students with disabilities as well as a second operations manager. Per the CESO recommendation, Connell said both managers would oversee north and south terminals to maintain a consistent culture across both locations. Connell said he hoped to cover the budget for the positions by increasing route efficiencies.
The school district previously maintained three days of video footage from each camera. Supervisors are now required to review at least one hour of footage each week, “with an emphasis on routes that have new staff and routes that serve students with special needs – particularly students who are pre- or non-verbal.”
Moving forward, the district promised to update cameras on all school buses—a $1.9 million cost paid for with bonds. The district hired transportation service provider Zum to install four internal cameras on each school bus, including a driver-facing camera with a built-in coaching system.
“There’s a lot of hours of video to go through between ride-alongs, reviewing the video, following up on incidences and also having the driver-coaching camera, we’re going to have a lot of information available to us that we’ve never had before,” Connell said.
Draper described the incident as a painful chapter in the school district’s history but added that she hoped it would prove to be a “catalyst for important and necessary improvements.”
A Wilmington teen diagnosed with autism was found safe after a New Hanover County school bus driver helped police locate the boy, reported WRAL News.
According to the article, bus driver Marie Murphy and her monitor Valeria Davis were picking up students April 25 during their normal route when Davis received a notification on her cell phone.
Davis told local news reporters that the WECT app, which provides local news alerts, notified her that a teenager was missing around the Wilmington area.
Davis showed the update to Murphy, and they realized the 14-year-old often rode their school bus. The teen was reported missing at midnight, and the Wilmington Police officers had spent five hours looking for him that morning.
After seeing the boy’s picture, Murphy and Davis were on the lookout as well. Murphy told local news reporters that it made her think of her own kids.
During their last school bus stop, the women reportedly saw the teen standing with a friend on the side of a street. They tried talking to the teen about the incident but all he said was that he wanted to go to school.
Davis and Murphyc contacted their supervisors, Laura Sebert and Stacy Greene, who called 911. Murphy drove the teen to New Hanover High School, where police met them. The reasons for the teen’s disappearance remain unclear.
A 15-year-old boy was accused of raping a 7-year-old boy on a Jennings County school bus, reported WTHR News.
The alleged incident reportedly occurred April 16 on a school bus for students with disabilities. The Jennings County Juvenile Probation Department is overseeing the investigation.
According to the article, the incident was detected in bus security footage and Jennings County School Corporation is now reviewing other security videos from the entire school year to determine if there were other similar incidents.
The news report states that the 15-year-old, who was not identified at this writing, was taken into custody April 17 and had his initial hearing April 22, where prosecutors filed the rape charge.
The teen reportedly has another court hearing this week and is currently being held at the juvenile detention center.
Local news reports confirmed that the family of the 7-year-old is preparing to sue the school district, claiming “grossly negligent” actions resulted in permanent injury to the boy and violated his civil rights.
The family’s attorneys reportedly say that the 7-year-old was “helplessly left unmonitored by two school employees who were on the bus and charged with caring for his safety.”
A prestigious award that recognizes the exemplary work and service of an outstanding transportation professional who emphasizes safety for students with disabilities will be presented at the STN EXPO West Conference this July.
Peter Grandolfo in an undated file photo.
This will be the 19th year the award is presented, in honor of Peter J. Grandolfo, who passed away Jan. 22, 2006. Grandolfo was recognized during his lifetime for his dedicated work as a director of transportation for Chicago Public Schools, a school board member for 35 years, a National Association for Pupil Transportation board member, and local and national school bus trainer, bus supervisor, and router. The Grandolfo Award was established the year after Grandolfo’s death by Bill and Colette Paul, the founders of School Transportation News.
Linda Grandolfo, Peter’s widow, has continued to be a recognized part of STN conferences as the on-site registration manager.
“I am honored for the 19th year to present the Peter J. Grandolfo Memorial Award,” said Linda. “This award annually honors a school transportation professional, who goes above and beyond in their job duties on behalf of the nation’s schoolchildren, with a special emphasis on students with special needs. Peter’s passion was the safe transportation of our children in a yellow school bus. He worked and traveled tirelessly to educate and support this passion. Twenty years after his sudden passing in 2006, his legacy remains in the student transportation industry. Presenting this award annually in Reno is truly a highlight for me.”
The 2025 Grandolfo Award is sponsored by Q’Straint/Sure-Lok. Linda Grandolfo will announce the winner July 14 before the STN EXPO West keynote address by Jon Petz. Submit a nomination by May 9.
Save $100 on regular conference registration with Early Bird registration by June 6. STN EXPO West will be held July 11-16 in Reno, Nevada at the Peppermill Resort. Find registration and hotel details and stay tuned for updates on the conference agenda, exhibitor lists & unique experiences at stnexpo.com/west.
Denise Jess walked into a Madison polling place on Saturday to vote early in person and encountered a familiar barrier: an absentee ballot envelope with a blank space for writing in her name, birthdate and address.
Jess, who is blind, chuckled along with her wife, who accompanied her to the polls. Who was going to do all that writing?
A poll worker quickly offered help, reminding Jess that she had the right to assistance. Jess, who is executive director of the Wisconsin Council of the Blind & Visually Impaired, knew she had those rights. But the moment still bothered her.
“It’s just a bummer,” she said, comparing voting with other tasks she performs independently, like identifying birds by ear, paying bills online, posting on social media, and grocery shopping. Voting is a constitutional right in Wisconsin and yet, she said, it remains far less accessible.
Other industries have prioritized accessibility because it benefits their bottom line, she said, but voting systems were not originally designed with accessibility in mind.
“We’re making strides,” she said, “but it’s still always, always about retrofitting and trying to catch up.”
Denise Jess uses an accessible voting machine during a test run at a Madison, Wis. polling place on March 29, 2025 (Courtesy of Denise Jess)
Jess’s experience illustrates a persistent tension in election policy: how to ensure both ballot security and accessibility for all voters. Electronic absentee voting is particularly nettlesome. Disability rights advocates have pushed for this option as a way for people with vision or other disabilities to vote independently, and in private, from home. But cybersecurity experts warn that current technology cannot guarantee that ballots returned electronically will be safe from hacking or manipulation.
Over a dozen other states provide fully electronic absentee voting for people with disabilities. In those states, voters with disabilities can receive a ballot electronically, mark it using a screen reader and return it electronically — similar to signing and returning a document electronically. Wisconsin isn’t one of them. Here, voters with disabilities must cast their votes on a paper ballot, or on an accessible voting machine at a polling place that prints out a paper ballot.
That means that voters who are visually impaired or unable to write must often rely on others to complete their ballots — undermining ballot secrecy, which is also constitutionally protected. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when many disabled voters were reluctant to visit the polls in person, Wisconsin’s rules presented an even bigger barrier.
Last year, four voters with disabilities, along with Disability Rights Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, filed a lawsuit seeking access to electronic absentee voting. A lower court initially granted some voters that option, but an appeals court paused and eventually reversed that order. The case is now before the Dane County Circuit Court.
Beyond the roughly dozen states that offer fully electronic voting, a few others, including Vermont, Michigan, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, allow voters with disabilities to fill out ballots electronically, but they have to print out the ballots and return them by mail, drop box, or in person. Verified Voting, a nonpartisan election technology group, promotes this option as a step forward for states wary of fully electronic voting.
That wouldn’t solve the issue for everyone, though. Jess pointed out that many blind voters don’t own printers, meaning they’d still face accessibility hurdles.
Security concerns haven’t been resolved
At a time of heightened concern over election security and integrity, some technology experts say fully electronic voting is still not ready to be used widely.
Between August 2021 and September 2022, the University of California, Berkeley, hosted a working group of election, technology and cybersecurity experts to discuss the feasibility of creating standards to enable safe and secure electronic marking and return technologies. The group found that widespread adoption of electronic return would require technologies that don’t currently exist or haven’t been tested.
A 2024 report by several federal agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Election Assistance Commission, found that sending digital copies of ballots to voters is safe and that filling them out electronically is somewhat safe, but that returning them electronically adds significant security risks.
“Sheer force of will doesn’t suffice to solve this problem,” said Mark Lindeman, the policy and strategy director at Verified Voting. “There needs to be extensive technical innovations that we can’t just dial up.”
Lindeman said threats from electronic ballot return include the possibility that somebody hacks into the system and changes votes. One potential safeguard — having voters verify that their selections were received and counted correctly — remains unproven at scale, the UC-Berkeley working group said.
“That’s the fundamental technical tragedy at this stage of the game,” Lindeman said. “Paper ballots are obviously inconvenient for many voters. They pose real obstacles to voting, but we haven’t found a technical alternative to paper ballots that solves all the problems.”
Denise Jess chooses ‘path of least pain’
In Wisconsin, Jess chooses among three imperfect voting options.
She can vote on Election Day in her polling place, whose layout she has memorized, though it can get too busy for her comfort. She can vote using an accessible machine but still has to hand-sign the poll book, something she typically does with the assistance of a poll worker and a signature guide, a small plastic card with a rectangular cutout that frames the area where she has to sign.
Alternatively, she can vote absentee in person during the early voting period, but then she has to receive help with paperwork and navigating an unfamiliar polling place.
Or she can fill out an application online and vote by mail, which she avoids because she can’t fill out a paper ballot without assistance.
“It’s kind of like, what’s the path of least pain?” she said.
An ExpressVote machine is on hand at Madison West High School polling place during the spring election on April 1, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
An ExpressVote machine is on hand at Madison West High School polling place during the spring election on April 1, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
For this Wisconsin Supreme Court election, given the potential for bad weather, she opted for early in-person voting at the Hawthorne Public Library, which isn’t her regular polling place.
“There’s enough consistency here at Hawthorne, but still there are surprises,” she said, sitting at a table at the library on Madison’s east side. “Even the simple navigation of going to the table to get the envelope, getting in line. They’re queuing people to wait behind the blue tape, which, of course, I can’t see.”
She could opt for more hands-on help from poll workers to speed up the process, but she said she sees her voting trips as a chance to learn more about the potential barriers for people with disabilities.
Some voters who are newer to vision loss or have more severe barriers can quickly become demoralized by the extra energy they need to put into casting a ballot, especially if poll workers aren’t trained or ready to help, she said.
“We’ve had voters say, ‘I’m not going back. I’m just not doing that again, doing that to myself,’ she said. “So then we lose a voter.”
If electronic voting were available, Jess said, she would do it a lot more often than voting in person because she wouldn’t have to depend on transportation or the weather.
“It would just be absolutely liberating,” she said. “I might still vote in-person at my polling place periodically, because I like my poll workers, and I always like to visit with them and give them kudos. But it would surely ease some stress.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
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