By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — The school district could reduce school bus transportation costs by cutting two to four bus routes daily starting next fall without changing school schedules or requiring more students to walk.

Those are the findings of a transportation efficiency study presented to the Board of Education last week.

The efficiencies would be achieved through rerouting and capitalizing on the large number of students assigned seats on buses but never use them.

Colton Graham, director of routing consulting for First Planning Solutions, a division of First Student, the district’s transportation contractor, told the board cutting that many revised routes would be tight, but doable, based on the number of daily riders and elimination of stops where no students get on.

Efforts to control rising costs

The potential savings, however modest, represent an effort by school officials to rein in escalating transportation costs.

Board Chair Lee Goldstein called the findings “very, very cool” and said the cuts were more than she anticipated.

Board member Robert Harrington, who has pushed for transportation efficiencies since he was elected to the panel, called reducing routes by up to 11 percent “great.”

“I think its good and compelling even without [a] change in bell times,” Harrington said, adding it provides an example to town funding bodies that the school district is working to find savings where it can without sacrificing service.

There are currently 53 bus routes using 37 full-size buses and 16 small buses.

Roughly 1,600 students skip rides

Close to 4,600 students in the district are eligible for a bus ride to school. A headcount taken by bus drivers found some 3,038 students rode the bus at least once during a five-week period in the fall.

Overall, about 67 percent of eligible riders took the bus. At the elementary and middle school level, it was about 75 percent. For high schoolers, it was 50 percent.

Graham said as many as eight buses could be shaved off the fleet if the district were willing to spread out school schedules by 15 minutes — five additional minutes between the high school and middle school start times and 10 more minutes between second and third tier elementary runs.

No steps to expand “walking zones”

An additional bus might be cut if the walking zone around Staples High and Bedford Middle schools were expanded.

That was a non-starter for most board members.

“I am a hard pass on walking from McDonald’s   [at Post Road East and Roseville Road] to Staples,” said board member Jill Dillon, looking at the sketched boundary lines provided in the report.

Souleye Kebe, a student representative on the board, said any expansion of the walking zone needs to take into account all the dead ends students have to traverse to get to school.

“There is no support for changing walk zones at this time,” Goldstein assured Kebe.

Scarice: No schedule, walker changes

Supt. of School Thomas Scarice said he wouldn’t recommend changes for walkers or school schedules. Any change to times at Staples would interfere with after-school sports schedules.

Scarice isn’t even confident the board will recommend the four-route cut suggested in the report.

Buffy Barry, the school district’s transportation coordinator; is skeptical the quality will remain the same, Scarice said.

“We will do some work between now and mid-March and confirm how many buses we will recommend [be cut],” Scarice said.

It was suggested that elimination of two routes might be a more manageable first step.

The change would be made before the Board of Finance acts on the 2025-26 spending proposal.

Graham acknowledged that going from 37 to 33 full-size buses does not leave a lot of room for mistakes.

“It will be tight,” he said.

Recovering from pandemic-era woes

During the pandemic and for a long time after, the district was consumed with busing woes between driver shortages and buses running late to stops and schools.

With the change to First Student, Scarice said the district has finally resolved transportation issues and doesn’t want to be too ambitious.

In 2022, First Student’s consulting arm conducted an initial study for the district, assessing efficiencies and overall performance of the district’s then-problematic transportation system.

The following year, First Student won a five-year contract with the district, taking over for DATTCO, which had served the district for more than two decades.

Budget projected to rise

This fiscal year, the district is projected to spend $7.44 million dollars on transportation, a figure that includes regular and special education transportation, field trips and fuel. 

Scarice’s proposed 2025-26 budget includes $7.88 million for transportation, a 2.48 percent increase. It was not immediately clear how much shaving two to four buses off the daily fleet will save the district.

Graham, who worked on both the first study and the latest one, said any busing change initiated by the district is best implemented at the start of a new school year. He suggested steps the district can take to confirm the ridership status of the 1,600 students assigned seats on buses but never use them.

Goldstein asked if a reduction in buses would mean longer rides or having to get to bus stops earlier.

Graham said the experience may improve. The riders per run would increase, but estimates are students’ time on buses would be cut by about two minutes in most cases because of increased efficiencies.

The consultant was asked if students who opt out of riding the bus could change their mind, take the bus occasionally or in emergency situations.

A process could be put in place to allow that, the board was told. It could depend on space available.

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.