Child Care Transportation
Cannot Be Limited to Every Weekday
The Commissioner of Education held in Judicial Decision 14,456, dated September 7, 2000, that it would be inconsistent with the Legislature’s intent in enacting Section 3635(1)(e) of Education Law, to require parents to send their children to child care every weekday in order to obtain transportation to or from school. In Decision 14,456, the school district had denied the parents request for transportation to a child care location on Thursdays and Fridays, because district policy required transportation to the same location every weekday. In finding the district’s policy to be inconsistent with Section 3635(1)(e), the Commissioner stated . . "Certainly the Legislature did not intend to compel parents to send their children away from home for the entire week in order to obtain transportation to a child care location on the days the parents are not available to care for their children."
The Commissioner distinguished the above decision from Decision 13,134, where a divorced parent sought transportation for his children from school to his home on some days and from school to his former wife’s home on other days. In Decision 13,134, the Commissioner held . . "there is no statutory or regulatory requirement that a board of education must transport a student to different places on different days of the week." However, transportation to child care locations was not an issue in 13,134 and Section 3635(1)(e) did not apply.