Students urge city council to back school committee's in-house busing plan; drivers and ownership cited as benefits

Three students from Christa McAuliffe Charter School addressed the council during public participation on June 3 and urged support for the school committee's proposed FY2026 budget item to transition Framingham Public Schools' busing to an in-house model.

Patrick Coyne said the in-house plan would give the district control over hiring, pay and operations and reported that "73 out of 77 total bus drivers have applied for the new position," a figure he attributed to district officials in his remarks. He and two classmates described daily impacts of inconsistent busing, including students being late, walking across unsafe roads and academic consequences.

Student speakers said shifting to district-run busing would allow school leaders to adjust pay and recruitment quickly if drivers are short, and that leasing-then-owning buses would make the fleet a district asset over time rather than a completely outsourced service. The students said in-house employment would improve benefits for drivers compared with the private vendor model used in recent years.

No formal council action on the school committee's budget request was taken at the June 3 meeting; the budget was moved to a reading following the finance subcommittee recommendation (see separate coverage). School transportation leaders (named in remarks as Lincoln Lynch, head of budget, and Angela Furtado, director of transportation) were referenced by the students but did not speak on the council floor during the public participation period recorded in the transcript.