“It is not good to have all of your eggs in one basket. I would recommend a combina- tion of an in-house fleet and contractors.”
—DENISE CAPASSO, OLD BRIDGE TOWNSHIP (N.J.) BOARD OF EDUCATION
district employee, explained that the long association with private transportation companies is a result of the need to fulfill the provisions of court-ordered busing as part of desegregation plans faced by school districts across the country in the late 1970s. “It forced the district to do more busing than it was used to,” Diamico said. “It was an overwhelming amount of work and there was no time to get enough drivers to comply. Te decision was made to use contractors.”
Diamico said in his estimation the arrangement
has worked out “extremely” well. “First Student has been very good with their on- time performance,” Diamico said. “Our contract has a GPS requirement in it so we can track their on-time performance.” He said a requirement that all buses have three- point seatbelts by July of this year is also on track. “I’ve been monitoring that and they have been
great,” Diamico said. Meanwhile, on the other end of the state, Trans-
private contractors with district oversight. Superin- tendent Pamela C. Brown confirmed that Buffalo contracts its student transportation services for all of the aforementioned reasons. She said the results have been positive. “Te Buffalo Public Schools made the decision to
privatize its transportation services after consider- ing many factors including fleet age, student safety, maintenance costs, etc.,” Brown said. “Te district decided to bid out contract requirements to provide our students with the best equipment and safety features possible while containing costs. Overall, the district has been happy with the services provided by our contractor.” Buffalo contracts with First Student, the latest in a
string of private contractors employed by the district dating back to 1981. FirstGroup America, the parent company of First Student, took over that and other contracts of Laidlaw, the school district’s most recent provider, when it acquired the company in 2007. Buffalo Transportation Director Al Diamico, a
portation Director Ted Nugent said Coxsackie-Ath- ens Central School District south of Albany has used contract busing since 1955. First Student became one of the district’s two contractors when they assumed the contract formerly held by Laidlaw. A local carrier, Coxsackie Transport, handles the district’s special ed- ucation students. Nugent said his dealings with First Student have also been positive and pointed out that their safety training exceeds state standards. “Tey hold their safety meetings each month and the state only requires that it be done three times a year,” he said. Nugent and Diamico said they do their own
routing for accountability and monitoring of daily operations. “Te district feels that with me doing the routing we have more control over the routes and the mileages,” Nugent said. “Te district pays for the fuel. Tis way we have more control over the buses running on time.” Denise Capasso, transportation director for the
Old Bridge Township Board of Education in Old Bridge N.J., splits her district’s transportation duties with 17 local and national contractors. “We’re the third largest transporting school district
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