A Year After Disability Discrimination Complaint, CPS Parent Says District Must Do More

School buses park outside of Graham and Parks Elementary, a public school in Cambridge, in spring 2024. Cambridge parent John H. Summers, whose son has autism, says the Cambridge Public Schools system still has more to do to provide equitable transportation to disabled students.

n March of last year, John H. Summers, a Cambridge parent whose son has autism, filed a complaint against Cambridge Public Schools about disability-based discrimination in transportation. After a year, the district has taken steps to improve, but Summers says there is still a long way to go.

Summers’ son is one of the many disabled students in Cambridge who take alternative transportation to school. In his complaint with the United States Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, Summers alleged that the lack of tracking capabilities on the vehicles — as compared to other buses in the district — constitutes disability-based discrimination.

“Put yourselves in the shoes of the parent who has a nonverbal autistic child like myself who doesn’t know when the child is getting or where the child is,” Summers said in an interview with The Crimson.

Read more on the original article : https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/11/cambridge-school-transport-tracking/