Framingham School Committee member proposes solution to district's bus driver shortage

FRAMINGHAM — In July 2021, Framingham’s school bus provider, North Reading Transportation, had 77 drivers hired to drive Framingham students to and from school. Two years later, that number has dropped to 57, prompting a School Committee member to push for the city to coordinate busing in-house.

“I have the full intention of moving forward and pursuing this change, because I feel that it is in the best interest for our community, our students and their families, based on the lessons learned over the last few years,” said Adam Freudberg, who represents District 4.

With the 20-driver shortfall, the district reports that 917 Framingham students who requested busing have been turned down. It's an issue that impacts attendance and tardiness, and increases stress for students, parents and school staff.

'Recurring situation': Framingham Public Schools is 20 bus drivers short to start new year

“That hardest part of the job is talking to parents who just want to be able to get their child to school, and telling them that we can’t provide that,” Director of Finance and Operations Lincoln Lynch said during an Oct. 4 School Committee meeting.

Freudberg points to Worcester as recent example of in-house busing

Freudberg's proposal would see the city break from using NRT as its vendor and instead launch its own busing service. Other districts have done so, notably Worcester Public Schools, which broke from contractor Durham School Services in 2021 to run its own busing.

Framingham previously operated busing internally until 2011. The district switched to a contracted service with the goal of saving money, which Freudberg said has never materialized.

“In 2011, it was a different era financially — we were still recovering from a recession and most communities were doing the vendor model,” Freudberg said. “Since the pandemic, things have changed. Now we see communities — Worcester and Brockton being recent examples — who are going with an internal model.”

NRT told the Daily News that it's still working to get an adequate number of drivers to serve Framingham.

"Framingham Public Schools is a valued partner and we remain committed to supporting safe and reliable student transportation for the communities we serve," the company said through an official spokesperson. "We will continue to collaborate with the district on meaningful solutions and aggressively pursue several recruitment efforts. To date, we have made gains in hiring by significantly increasing wages for bus drivers, offering free CDL training, paid training and signing bonuses."

How would the district create an internal busing service?

Freudberg said a key provision that exists through the contract with NRT is that the school district reserves the right to lease the buses NRT uses for Framingham. Framingham Public Schools can also recruit drivers used by NRT. That would allow the district to use both NRT buses and drivers to transport students to and from school, while running the busing program itself.

“We have certain rights in the contract that if they are failing to meet the needs, we have the potential to recruit current employees and lease their buses,” Freudberg said. “When it comes to how fast this could happen, the potential of being able to have those vehicles are a major benefit to being able to start this as soon as next school year.”

During the Oct. 4 meeting, the School Committee was given a presentation from the Massachusetts Association of Pupil Transportation, an independent organization that conducted a review of Framingham’s busing situation. Colleen Cavanaugh, MAPT’s direct of planning, said Framingham had some attributes that would make transitioning to city-run school busing easier.

'Improvement in service': Worcester starts new school year with uptick in bus drivers

“You do have some in-house expertise — this has been done in the past,” she said. “The district may be able to offer better benefits for drivers. You may be able to utilize custodians or cafeteria staff as drivers, if they're looking to pick up extra hours. That is something other districts have looked at. Routing and bus stop placement is already being done in-house.”

Freudberg said that by running the program in-house, the school district would be more successful at recruiting new drivers than NRT has been, citing the strength of the district's human resource department, as well as improvements Worcester has made since switching to an internal model.

“NRT has not been engaged with our human resource department on a regular basis," Freudberg said. "With FPS human resources taking the lead, and with Worcester working with the state agency, MassHire, we expect to be able to recruit more drivers. MassHire recently reported 62 new bus drivers with Worcester hired in the last year. I’d appreciate one-tenth of that figure in Framingham.”

How would in-house busing be funded?

Framingham Public Schools has a contract that pays NRT $8 million annually until the end of the 2024-25 school year. While the contract exists, the city could continue to use NRT buses, even while it runs the busing service independently. In the future, the district could look at leasing buses from another vendor, as well as potentially purchase its own buses.

Freudberg said federal and state grants have encouraged districts to purchase electric buses and install charging stations, which Framingham could one day capitalize on.

“We would seriously explore federal and state grants that exist for funding electric vehicles and charging stations — not only to have a greener fleet, but it also would save money on gas costs,” Freudberg said.

'A local miracle': Bus driver strike is averted in Framingham

Framingham school officials are concerned about what they see as a lack of transparency on spending by NRT. Freudberg said NRT told the district that if Framingham paid $550,000 more per year, NRT would be able to raise driver rates by $5 per hour. After a school bus driver strike was averted last spring, Framingham is paying $1.8 million more per year than it was previously — yet NRT driver rates have increased by just $2 per hour.

“Something is off here, and that is another reason I want us to seriously consider this change,” Freudberg said. “Not giving the drivers the $5-per-hour rate increase is why we're having such a hard time recruiting them.”

The district is undergoing a study to look at a cost assessment between switching to an internal busing service and remaining with NRT. Freudberg said the study should be ready for presentation during a School Committee meeting in November.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Framingham Public Schools considers in-house busing system