Framingham School Leaders Tout Increased Number of Bus Drivers

FRAMINGHAM - Local education leaders touted the increased number of bus drivers within Framingham during the School Committee’s meeting on Wednesday, November 19, as the group voted in favor of a proposal to facilitate their new in-house transportation model.

The Framingham Public Schools (FPS) district had dealt with bus driver shortages in recent years. Just 53 drivers were available to begin the 2024-25 school year, though their agreement with the company NRT Bus Inc. called for the contractor to provide 77 drivers to serve local students. Amid those troubles, Framingham education officials decided to develop an in-house transportation model that made school bus drivers city employees.

Executive Director of Finance and Operations for the school district Lincoln Lynch said on Wednesday that since the system launched a few months ago, the in-house school bus model has been “really going well.” He explained Framingham currently has 67 drivers available with two others in training. The school district is expecting to eventually have 72 drivers within its system, while FPS currently has a full lineup of employed bus monitors as well.

An FPS memo shows that between October 1 and November 10, 2.6% of morning elementary school trips and 0.1% of morning middle school trips arrived after the initial bell of the school day by at least one minute. However, 33% of afternoon elementary school buses and 35.8% of afternoon middle school buses showed up to schools over 10 minutes after the final bell of the day during that same period. Just a pair of high school morning trips—out of 1,027 total runs—ran late within that time frame, while no afternoon buses from FHS ran late.

Lynch told School Committee members there’s work to be done on the afternoon side of things, though he expressed his belief that those figures can improve.

“I think part of it is a lot of new drivers just getting used to it,” Lynch said on Wednesday, “and I’m confident that the percentage of late runs in the afternoon will drop as we move throughout the year.”

The School Committee voted to approve of a proposed five year lease-to-own contract for buses to coincide with their in-house transportation operations.

The initial framework for that in-house model was to lease vehicles for five years before eventually purchasing the. FPS is technically in the third year of its deal with NRT, though Lynch explained the city is currently only leasing vehicles through NRT.

“As of June 30 we need to find new buses, because those buses will be going away,” Lynch continued.

The new lease-to-own deal is with New England Transit Sales, Inc. A memo from Lynch to the School Committee showed the company had submitted a roughly $10.6 million bid, the best out of the four offers FPS received. If approved by municipal legislators, the agreement would result in 86 diesel buses being delivered to Framingham by the start of June 2026. The costs of maintenance staffing, repairs, and inspections are included within the proposed deal, though fueling is not. Vehicle insurance would go through the city.

Lynch mentioned he is working with various parties to see if adding electric vehicles to the school bus fleet is viable for Framingham in the future on top of the new lease-to-own contract. He said factors such as school locations, routes, and fuel consumption have to be analyzed before a recommendation on that front is made.

“I’m hoping I can report back, probably, in a couple of weeks—maybe a month or two—on an update with (electric vehicles),” Lynch told the education officials.

The School Committee also pondered the approval of a two-year proposal for the coverage of costs related to driver retention, incentives, and CDLs. Members of the group cited a desire to let school bus drivers themselves provide more input on those matters, so the topic will be put on a future School Committee agenda.

The motion for the lease-to-own agreement will be referred to the City Council for their consideration and potential approval.