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Framingham to hire district bus drivers and monitors; district to lease buses and cover CDL training
Summary
District officials announced plans to bring bus drivers in-house starting July 1, to lease buses, hire drivers/monitors as school employees and to cover CDL training costs; initial recruitment yielded 14 driver and 7 monitor applications.
Framingham Public Schools officials announced Feb. 5 that the district will begin hiring its own school bus drivers and monitors and will lease buses as it transitions to an in-house transportation operation starting July 1.
Lincoln Lynch, executive director of finance and operations, said the district posted driver and monitor jobs across major job platforms and will help pay for applicants to obtain commercial driver’s licenses. "As of Saturday, we have our school bus driver and school bus monitor jobs posted on LinkedIn, on Indeed, on Craigslist," Lynch said. He told the committee the district will lease buses and partner with NRT for vehicle supply while hiring drivers and monitors as school department employees.
Key terms the administration announced include a $35 hourly rate for drivers, a $1,000 sign-on bonus for drivers, and $22 per hour for bus monitors. Lynch said the district will cover CDL training and test costs and plans to offer a range of part-time to full-time hours (roughly 20–35 hours per week), summer work opportunities, field-trip and athletics transportation work, and other incentives. He also referenced a proposed daily attendance incentive modeled on another district: $25 per day that would be paid at the end of the year based on days worked.
Lynch reported early interest: 14 completed driver applications and seven completed monitor applications within days of posting. He said the district intends to advertise continuously until positions are filled, hold a job-opportunity day, and accept internal referrals; referral bonuses from prior programs remain available. He characterized the effort as the "first step toward bringing busing in house starting July 1." The district will still partner with NRT for the buses only, Lynch said.
The announcement described benefits in broad terms — healthcare and retirement were noted as standard municipal benefits — and staff will finalize hiring and training plans in the coming weeks. The committee discussed tracking how many initial applicants already hold CDLs and the district said it will report that information.
This is an operational change that does not itself require a committee vote at this meeting; members expressed support and asked staff to continue reporting recruitment progress.
