'Round and 'round: on district transportation

Back when I was an English teacher, I taught my students the five paragraph essay (yes, I can hear the gasps now; you can find my defending this practice if done appropriately in the January 2001 edition of English Journal, if you like). When my students were still getting the hang of how the essay worked, one of my most frequent comments on essays was:

evidence doesn't support your thesis

And so it is that we consider the report of the Worcester Public Schools transportation options for next year and going forward.

As this hasn't been discussed in Committee since March (on a subcommittee report which oddly did not make the minutes of the meeting), you might have lost track of where we're at. It's taken this long, incidentally, because they've postponed the subcommittee meeting twice.
The direction of the Worcester School Committee, on a 4-3 vote, was not not only send out for bids, but also to require administration to prepare a district-run option for comparison.
It thus is odd that Monday's agenda instead says:

To review bid specifications for student transportation services and award contract to lowest responsive and responsible bidder for a contract term to begin in June 2020.

...which was not the committee's directive back in March.

Nonetheless, the report they are receiving (which only posted Friday morning) does still do both. The conclusion the report reaches is:

Therefore, the Superintendent recommends the award of this contract with status quo arrangement for the next two years. Upon the end of the next contract in June 2022, the Superintendent recommends that the School Committee review all information provided by internal and external groups and made the appropriate recommendation.

 The bold is in the original. Never has status quo seemed more apt. Note, of course, the School Committee would not make a "recommendation,"  but an actual decision.

What then leads us to this conclusion?

It certainly isn't the service we've been receiving, as witnessed again in my own family Wednesday, but countless families across the district daily. Hundreds of families were again impacted on Friday afternoon when buses were late, something shared by school administrations but quickly deleted when it became clear that it was getting attention. Presumably it went down the memory hole.

In fact, the reconciliation of credits document accompanying the report itself makes the argument: the district has claimed nearly half a million dollars in lack of service credits from Durham over just last year! A review of the claims show not only traffic (it is a city) but basic Durham issues like not having the required GPS (or so they said) or forwarding things as needed. Note as well that some of those credits are in buses providing services required under special education plans. That the district now is going to give back over $100K in those credits in order to settle the contract is outrageous; a glance through the parent groups I'm on argues that this is probably well under documented.

Clearly then, it is not about service.

It isn't, despite what some have argued, about the bus drivers. The issues with the busing largely have been ones out of the drivers control. And drivers, whoever is running the system, need hardly fear they'll lack work, as there is a very well-documented national bus driver shortage. This is set up as one (of two) arguments against district-run transportation, but it is no less true of Durham; the district just doesn't have the capacity to do anything about it when it is the contractor.
The report also clearly lays out that Durham drivers, as allowed by contractual and other requirements, would not only be sought after as Worcester Public School drivers, but would have contract and benefits that are the same or better than what they have now (see page 11 of the report). Because they would be driving for Worcester, they also wouldn't be sent elsewhere to drive, as Durham drivers are and have been. It is also important to note the explicit commitment to diversifying the transportation office, not only drivers but also managment; that is the first such commitment I've seen in the Worcester Public Schools, and it certainly isn't something we're hearing from Durham.

Thus it isn't about bus drivers.

One might think, given how much concern has been manifested by the superintendent and others, that it's about a working relationship with Durham management. That would seem to ignore--perhaps it isn't known?--about national concerns that have been raised about the company. Another lawsuit was filed in federal court just last week around the Chatanooga crash; Hamilton County of course sent their contract elsewhere when it was up. To look across the country is to see districts considering other options due to families raising concerns, which has been true for years. Roanoke is among the more recent examples. And I could give lots more links!
Contrast that of course--see page 9 of the report--with district employees who are local, many of whom have worked for the district for years.
One hopes, therefore, that it isn't about management relationships.

Thus, it's got to be money, right?

Nope. It isn't money, either. The remarkable thing about the district-run proposal--which, it is important to note, is something the district has been working on for nine years--is that it would cost less next year than we pay Durham this year. 

And it would cost $2.1M less than it would cost if we hired Durham to run next year.

And it would save us $30M over the next ten years.

For those who pay attention to such things, one might further note that transportation is among the only cost centers that do not count towards net school spending. As the city moves closer and closer back to zero--

tossing another $2M of local funds on top of what is already going to transportation would not appear to be in the city's best interest, let alone the district's. It also means that the argument, as made on page 12 that pursuing the foundation budget lawsuit is somehow a drawback, makes no sense: now is when we most need those resources saved to be used in the system!

Durham, by the way, is a U.S. subsidary of the U.K. company National Express, which has been doing just fine in terms of profits.

The choices before the Worcester School Committee next week thus are:

• continue to have the same bad service we have had for the past several years, covering up the lacks of that service and misleading the public and families about it, moving drivers around New England, for $1M more than this year and 3% increases after that
• expand district service to include all students, ensuring that when a family calls the Worcester Public Schools about a transportation concern, they get someone who can fix it, keeping our drivers and our funding local, and saving $2.1M next year and $30M long term

Choose this day who you will serve, Worcester School Committee.

Finance and Operations meets Monday at 5 pm at the Durkin Adminstration Building.
The full Committee meets Thursday at 7 pm at City Hall.
Both meetings are public meetings and testimony is generally taken during both.
And you can always email. 
Also, if you want to hear me talk about this for three minutes (campaign alert!), I've posted a video about this here.