Authorizing the Committee on Education to hold hearings on the procurement, contracting and management processes of the School District of Philadelphia for student busing to establish what if any errors, omissions or lessons learned can be derived from the systematic failure of contracted busing to deliver students on time and ready to learn.

WHEREAS, The purpose of the School District of Philadelphia Office of Transportation is to deliver students to and from their schools on time and ready to learn; and

WHEREAS, The purpose of the School District of Philadelphia Office of Procurement is to purchase and make available to the School District offices those services needed for their proper function; and

WHEREAS, The students the School District of Philadelphia should be providing transportation services to are waiting for hours, having buses canceled and missing classes and after school activities at rates never seen before; and

WHEREAS, While there are examples of the phenomena throughout the country Philadelphia’s performance has been notably below average and has shown little signs of improvement; and

WHEREAS, The School District had full time bus drivers with pensions and benefits that build reliability and would minimize need for outside vendors; and

WHEREAS, Post recovery we need to leverage opportunities to create careers for Philadelphians and our parents; and

WHEREAS,

SEIU was a partner and can help us bring back quality jobs to our school district; and

WHEREAS, For students forced to miss in many cases more than a year and a half of in person learning already additional missed class time and the social emotional building of after school activities is unacceptable; and

WHEREAS, It is the job of City Council to hold city processes accountable and to investigate ways in which the city may and in this case must improve its procurement, contracting and service delivery; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, The Committee on Education hold hearings on the procurement, contracting and management processes of the School District of Philadelphia for student busing to establish what if any errors, omissions or lessons learned can be derived from the systematic failure of contracted busing to deliver students on time and ready to learn.

End