During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Watervliet City Schools, like hundreds of other school districts across the state, used its district-leased buses to transport food, devices, and students' property to households throughout the city.


What You Need To Know

  • In two executive orders amid COVID-19 in the spring, Governor Cuomo directed that remote instruction continue, as well as the delivery of student meals
  • In a “heroic” effort, school districts around the state authorized the use of their buses to deliver devices, Wi-Fi, food and wellness checks to students.
  • A November 6th memo from State Ed informed districts that the law doesn’t authorize the state to reimburse districts for transportation costs used in this manner
  • There is call now to change the school transportation laws
  •  Spokesman for the Budget Division told Capital Tonight, “We are sensitive to the food and instructional material deliveries, and if they provided these services, we will work with districts to reimburse them”

Capital Tonight has learned that the Cuomo administration has agreed to work with school districts like Watervliet to reimburse them for at least some of the costs associated with transportation incurred in the spring. 

“We are sensitive to the food and instructional material deliveries, and if they provided these services, we will work with districts to reimburse them,” Freeman Klopott told Capital Tonight via email Monday.

Bob Lowry, the deputy director for Advocacy and Communication with the New York State Council of School Superintendents, said the news is encouraging, but the Budget Division’s statement is at best a stop gap measure. 

“Very happy to hear that. It addresses at least part of the problem,” he said. “But there’s still this issue of ‘stand by’ costs.”

Here’s some of the history behind the issue.

Back in April, many school districts repurposed buses at the behest of Governor Cuomo who had issued an executive order establishing the requirements for school districts to continue instruction remotely and continue the distribution of student meals.

The governor extended the EO in two week increments through April.

In May, the governor announced that schools would remain closed through June and directed that remote instruction continue, as well as the delivery of student meals.

What superintendents like Watervliet City’s Lori Caplan understood from these executive orders was that they needed to ensure students received their tablets in order to facilitate remote learning.

NYSCOSS’ Bob Lowry called the mobilization of buses in the spring “nothing short of heroic.”

For many families, the buses became a lifeline. Buses delivered food to stops throughout Watervliet, and in some cases hand-delivered food to students' homes because neither the students nor their parents could find transportation to get them to the bus stops.   

Administrators also rode the buses to conduct welfare checks on students who were not logging on to Zoom classes or answering phone calls to their homes.

So on November 6, when school districts received a memo from State Ed informing them that state law does not authorize reimbursement for these so-called “stand by” transportation expenses, they were deeply unhappy.

Here is the language from State Ed:

“Because it is based on the costs for transporting pupils to and from school, the Education Law does not authorize the State to reimburse costs associated with keeping employees or contractors on standby, maintaining infrastructure, or other costs incurred when transportation services were not being provided to students during the period of school closures in Spring 2020, including costs associated with the use of school buses to deliver school meals, homework packets and wi-fi access. Therefore, school districts may not claim and receive State reimbursement for such costs.”

Watervliet Superintendent Lori Caplan told Capital Tonight what went through her mind when she read the memo.

“I thought, ‘Shameful! How can they break a promise to students like that?’ ”

While Klopott’s statement to Capital Tonight gives districts some hope for reimbursement, education stakeholders say a lot more work needs to be done.

Specifically, superintendents want enactment of legislation to expressly make these “stand by” expenses legal to reimburse. 

Senator Rachel May and Assemblyman Al Stirpe are currently sponsoring bills to address at least part of the “stand by” transportation issue.

But Dr. Rick Timbs, executive director of the Statewide School Finance Consortium, told Capital Tonight something comprehensive is needed, because it was disappointing to learn that, in the most difficult of times, the law guiding transportation aid is “insufficient, overly restrictive and lacks any modern context.”

“School district Boards of Education, superintendents, the Board of Regents, and legislators need to make sure the law that identifies transportation aid eligibility is updated and made realistic,” Timbs argued.

State Ed’s 11/6 memorandum also included language stating it would be looking at ways of amending the Education Law to help school districts.

"The Board of Regents, as part of its 2021-22 budget and legislative initiatives, is advancing proposals to amend the Education Law to allow school districts to be reimbursed for costs incurred to keep transportation vendors and employees on standby between March 18, 2020 and May 1, 2020, for costs associated with the use of school buses to deliver school meals, homework packets and wi-fi access during periods of school closure, and for costs incurred to maintain the infrastructure necessary to have transportation services available to support in-person education.”

Watervliet City Schools Superintendent Lori Caplan told Capital Tonight that if the state did withhold transportation reimbursement, it would exacerbate the repercussions of COVID-19 on some of the neediest students.

“If the state aid withholdings become true cuts, it will devastate communities for years to come,” Caplan said. “Layoffs will happen in masses, and teachers, administrators and support staff will no longer have money to shop or live in their respective communities if they are no longer employed.”

Caplan also predicted that some schools may have to shut their doors for good because they will no longer have the people or the programs they need to provide a constitutionally obligated “sound basic education.”