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Board moves to tighten bus safety and routing after incidents; consultant reports 72 bids and $1M projected savings
Summary
Following an uptick in incidents on school buses, the district has created a bus-safety committee, rolled out multilingual re-education flyers, and is revising routing procedures. Consultant Tim Ammon reported 72 transportation bid responses and estimated roughly $1 million in cost savings compared with renewing current contracts.
District transportation officials told the board they saw an increase in behavioral incidents on school buses this spring — especially at the elementary and middle-school levels — and moved to re-educate students and form a bus-safety committee.
The district distributed multilingual flyers to students and said it will form a committee including cabinet staff, principals, teacher and parent representatives, and invited board members to participate. The administration said it will ask for parents and building representatives to join, with the aim of finalizing committee membership in early July and developing a student behavior improvement plan for the 2026–27 school year.
Tim Ammon of Ammon Consulting updated the board on transportation procurement and data improvements. Ammon reported a robust bid response (72 bids), said eight schools had only one bidder and described a revised organizational recommendation: a single transportation organization with functional specialization for public and nonpublic routing. He said the bid results and negotiating produced an approximate $1 million reduction in projected transportation costs for 2026–27 compared with continuing current contracts.
Ammon also described major data-management improvements: the team imported roughly 29,000 affidavit records and manually entered about 4,000 more to improve routing accuracy, and he outlined a schedule that includes interim benchmark dates (including June 29) and a July 15 transition target for routing and the phased release of bus passes to ensure routes are validated before the fall start. He said the district is working to get routing to contractors earlier than in previous years so contractors can flag impractical turns or timing issues.
Board members asked for benchmark dates and reports on progress; administration agreed to provide them. The district also said it will monitor drills and contractor compliance and consider exceeding minimum state drill requirements as part of its improvement plan.
