The school bus industry is largely owned by First Student, NEC, and Harrows. These are three companies that own a shitload of school buses, have drivers on staff, and provide school bus services for a fee. Districts get tired of running their own fleet, maintaining their own buses (and paying their own mechanics to be on staff), hiring and keeping drivers, dealing with parents, etc. So eventually they sell their entire operation to First Student (usually... they own like 80% of the market), and then pay a monthly fee to First Student for THEM to take on the job of busing children to/from school, games, and field trips. This, I think, is the future of school buses in America. I believe we are maybe 3 years from this being a complete monopoly owned by First Student. And I'm OK with that. I work very closely with First Student and NEC, and they are both really upstanding companies that have the right people, doing good work, for the right reasons. And the additional services First Student offers - like a parent app that shows the location and ETA of the kid's bus, and notifications when the kid gets on/off the bus - are going to make the public very happy to be dealing with this monopoly and trusting their kids to this company, rather than some local yahoo who just got their CDL yesterday. Some regulatory changes need to be made around differentiating between a school bus driver and a semi-truck driver carrying explosives, but those will happen if First Student garners enough power and support from schools and parents. I wouldn't write off school buses as a thing just yet...
I have zero experience with First Student. If they can do the job well and do right by their people, more power to them. I actually had the opportunity to speak with a real live, and really excellent public school bus driver today. We drove our 8th graders across town to see a high school production of "The sound of Music". The driver, Amanda, was a parent of a student I had several years back. She'd said she remembered me. I shared our conversation with her about the challenges facing bus drivers. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Amanda and her husband operate business together and she says she drives a bus mainly to have a sense of connection with the surrounding community. It's sad that we have so few people of this character available to serve our schools.
I have zero experience with First Student. If they can do the job well and do right by their people, more power to them. I actually had the opportunity to speak with a real live, and really excellent public school bus driver today. We drove our 8th graders across town to see a high school production of "The sound of Music". The driver, Amanda, was a parent of a student I had several years back. She'd said she remembered me. I shared our conversation with her about the challenges facing bus drivers. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Amanda and her husband operate business together and she says she drives a bus mainly to have a sense of connection with the surrounding community. It's sad that we have so few people of this character available to serve our schools.