For safe riding on a school bus by their child, parents'/guardians' responsibilities include the following.
- Are expected to encourage their children to learn and obey the school bus safety rules and to exhibit appropriate student conduct as described in district documents pertaining to student transportation,
- Are responsible for instructing their children about their assigned bus stop and advising them to leave the bus only at their assigned stop,
- Are responsible to see that their children are at the assigned stop five minutes before the scheduled arrival of the bus,
- May be held responsible for any observed acts of vandalism of private property by their children while on the bus or at the bus stop location and restitution may be pursued by law enforcement agencies,
- Will not be transported to or from school on the school bus,
- Will arrange for their students to have physician-prescribed medication that is to be transported to school for use during the school day appropriately labeled and in a backpack or parcel to be kept in the student's possession during the route. No medication will be administered during the route by either the school bus driver or the attendant. Only health care providers accompanying students as specified in a 504 Accommodation Plan or the IEP will be authorized to administer physician-prescribed medication during transport.
The parent/guardian of students who have been approved for modified transportation services will:
- Cooperate in the completion of the APS transportation form by providing emergency phone numbers and addresses of responsible persons to be contacted in case of an emergency such as illness, injury, or abbreviated school day due to inclement weather,
- Allow at least three to five working days to implement any changes in pick-up and/or drop-off locations. The driver is not allowed to change or modify a bus route,
- Have the student ready to board the bus at the assigned pick-up time,
- Cooperate by ensuring students have clean diapers if they are not toilet trained and that colostomy bags are not filled to capacity before boarding the bus. Transportation will not be provided for students who are soiled or have full bags before boarding the bus.
- Transport their student when exceptional situations arise which call for a deviation from established bus service (e.g., the student needs to be dropped off at a different address temporarily),
- Transport their student in the event of bus suspension,
- Make arrangements to have a responsible person meet the bus when it is indicated on the APS modified transportation form that a student cannot be left unattended,
- Notify the transportation provider in advance (one full school day, if possible) or signal the bus when it arrives in the event the student does not plan to attend school on a specific day.
Modified transportation services should begin three to five school days after STS has received a completed transportation form from the IEP Committee. All affected parties will be informed if route reconfiguration will exceed five days.