BPS officials cite improvements after Zoom rollout but capacity, vendor and scheduling gaps persist for student-athlete transportation

Boston City Council Committee on Education Chair Harry Santana opened a Feb. 27 hearing on Boston Public Schools transportation for student athletes, pressing the district and its contractor to explain recurring late or missing buses and the steps taken to fix the problem.

The hearing focused on recent operational changes, including the district's switch to the Zoom routing and tracking platform, new scheduling practices and plans to add backup vendors — moves district transportation leaders say have already reduced some coverage gaps but have not eliminated them.

Why it matters: student athletes and families say missed buses disrupt games, practices and team opportunities; some teams and coaches have had to arrange alternate rides, which raises equity concerns because not all families can pay for taxis or provide private rides. Councilors repeatedly tied transportation reliability to equal access to extracurriculars and to broader district spending priorities.

Boston Public Schools Transportation Executive Director Dan Rosengard said the district has been working to modernize routing and operations and highlighted near-term improvements tied to the Zoom platform. “Using the student ridership tracking through Zoom, we've identified over 2,000 students, or nearly 10% of the riders that we started the year with, who consistently don't ride the bus,” Rosengard said, and added that about 1,000 families have opted out after outreach. He said the district provides roughly 5,000 yellow-bus trips for athletics and field trips over a school year and that better ridership data will allow more efficient routing in future years.

Panelists described concrete capacity limits. Rosengard said the operation's current working capacity is about 25 round-trip non‑home‑to‑school events (athletics and field trips) per day, with fewer available during the afternoon home‑to‑school peak. Jackie Hayes, deputy director of transportation, described bidding rules that mean most charter/athletics trips must be assigned at least 72 hours in advance to get driver coverage and said the district and vendor have been pushing to reduce last‑minute scheduling that forces trips into a daily standby process with greater risk of being uncovered.

Councilors and the athletics office said getting accurate schedules earlier in the season has tangible effects. Avery Asdale, senior director of athletics, said athletics scheduling was moved in several cases (for example, delaying some middle‑school basketball starts) to avoid overlaps with other peak service periods and to improve coverage. Amy Daniels, senior programs and operations manager in athletics, said centralized scheduling and moving trips into a single system has made last‑minute changes easier to catch and reduced errors that previously left teams unsure whether a bus was coming.

Still, families and student athletes testified about disruptions. Amar (Amar) Perez, a John D. O'Bryant senior and baseball player, told the committee that his team has faced last‑minute cancellations and long delays on field‑trip runs. “It's been multiple occasions where last minute cancellations have happened,” Perez said, recounting a day when a faulty bus delayed a field trip until midday.

Budget and contracts: Councilor Flynn noted district transportation spending figures during the hearing. Rosengard and councilors quoted different summary figures in the record: Councilor Flynn said “we spend close to $171,000,000 on BPS transportation,” while staff referenced a figure near $180,000,000. Rosengard described details of the Transdev contract: a fixed management fee around $17,300,000 per year and variable, reimbursable operating costs that bring total annual payments to Transdev to roughly $108,000,000 in a recent year.

Labor and assignment rules: Councilors pressed staff on a recently negotiated bus‑driver contract and an implementation concept called “work as directed.” Hayes and Rosengard explained that under current contract rules drivers bid for nonrecurring trips (including athletics) beginning 72 hours in advance; if no driver takes the work it can go into a daily bid with lower certainty. Rosengard and Hayes said proposed “work as directed” language would create an avenue to assign some trips when no driver bids, and that a planned increase in guaranteed minimum weekly hours from 31 to 35 is contingent on agreement on that language and an implementation timeline tied to July 1.

Backup vendors and procurement: staff said the district is pursuing a multi‑vendor procurement to provide backup transportation options for athletics and other non‑routine trips. Rosengard said the intent is a vetted vendor pool so schools and athletics have workable alternatives when the operation cannot provide a bus and driver.

Technical and fleet notes: Rosengard said the district has 39 electric buses in its fleet. On heating, he said buses and drivers have a 20‑minute pretrip inspection window that includes time to prepare vehicles; he disputed public assertions that electrics routinely need hours to warm up in winter. Dan and Jackie also described improvements in coach/driver communication enabled by Zoom: coaches and athletics contacts can now see when a driver or bus is assigned and can track a bus in real time, reducing uncertainty about whether a bus “is coming.”

No formal votes or decisions were taken at the hearing. Committee members and district officials presented operational changes and timelines and agreed to continue oversight. Councilors pressed for continued monthly reporting on coverage and for updates on the vendor procurement and on negotiations to implement “work as directed.”

The committee chair closed the hearing after public testimony and discussion; staff said they would continue implementing the platform changes, pursue external vendor contracts and aim to sustain the recent improvements through spring and next school year.

Ending: The committee did not adopt any binding directive at the hearing; members said they expect follow‑up briefings and data reporting on athletics trip coverage, vendor procurement and the status of contract language for driver assignments.