The Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) is spending about $3 million more than it did last school year on bus contractors to transport private and charter school students, according to resolutions passed by the district’s Board of Education. 

State law says that, with some exceptions, public school districts have to transport students who live within their boundaries but choose to attend other schools, such as private religious schools or charter schools. CMSD uses district-employed drivers and a few contractors to bus those non-public students. 

CMSD records show that the district is transporting about 4,400 private and charter school students this year — about 1,000 more than last year. At the same time, contractors are busing a larger share of those students. About 84% of non-public students get rides from contractors this year. That number was closer to 70% last year. 

CMSD is short bus drivers

Warren Morgan, the CEO of CMSD, said the district is using more contractors this year because it can’t fill open positions for drivers. CMSD had 175 drivers on staff in the early months of this school year, according to staffing records from September of 2024. Columbus City Schools, which enrolls about 10,000 more students than CMSD, had more than 400 drivers at the beginning of this school year. 

Depending on job title and seniority, CMSD’s bus drivers earned anywhere from $19.82 to $28.55 per hour, according to the September 2024 staff records. Rightway Transportation, a CMSD contractor, is hiring drivers at $30 per hour, and Community Bus Services, another contractor, lists a pay range of $18 to $27 per hour on online job postings. 

CMSD’s bus driver shortage forced the district to hire contractors for 29 bus routes to non-public schools that were previously covered by CMSD drivers. Bus contractors will cost the district about $7.6 million total this year, according to resolutions passed by the Board of Education.

CMSD did not respond to questions seeking more details about the district’s bus driver shortage in time for this story’s publication. Signal Cleveland also asked to speak with Eric Taylor, the executive director of the district’s transportation services, but the district did not set up an interview. 

CMSD is also spending about twice as much as last year on RTA passes, which it gives to high school students instead of busing them. The district spent $2.5 million on passes for 12,000 students this year, according to a Board of Education resolution. Passes for 13,000 students cost the district $1.2 million for the 2023-2024 school year.

These changing transportation costs come as CMSD is taking steps to cut expenses and avoid a looming budget shortfall. District officials recently started a long-term facilities planning process aiming to even out school building conditions across the city. That process could result in the closing of some school buildings. The district is also currently researching the costs and benefits of its various school calendars. 

Fewer drivers and more complicated routes

CMSD isn’t the only district struggling to keep up with the busing needs of both public and private school students, said Doug Palmer, senior transportation consultant for the Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA). A national bus driver shortage reached Ohio in 2018, he said, when statewide data showed the number of drivers retiring surpassed the number of new hires.

The COVID-19 pandemic made the situation more dire as drivers across the country left the profession in droves. As of September of 2024, there were about 12% fewer bus drivers on the road than there were in 2019. Citing a survey he helped conduct in 2023, Palmer said only about 10% of Ohio’s public school districts have enough drivers and substitute drivers to transport all their students. 

“One driver short causes a bus not to run because there’s no one in the background to fill that spot, right?” Palmer said. “Most districts, right now, on a daily basis, are having mechanics and office staff drive buses just to fill the vacancies.”

Expanded access to school choice vouchers can also put stress on public districts, Palmer said. With limited drivers available, covering all the necessary stops at private and charter schools can be complicated. Schools may start and end at different times, and their locations may require drivers to cover broader areas, further complicating routes. 

“It doesn’t necessarily make the shortage worse,” Palmer said. “But you have more work to do with the same number of drivers.”

More collaboration between public and private schools could help ease that burden, Palmer said. If non-public schools bought their own buses, he said, public school districts could contract with them to directly bus their own students. 

Ohio Attorney General weighs in

State law does allow public school districts to opt out of transporting some non-public students if doing so would significantly burden the district. The state has certain guidelines districts have to follow if they want to formally deem a student’s transportation “impractical.” Districts commonly decide not to transport a student if their private school is more than 30 minutes away from the public school they would otherwise attend. 

In those cases, a district has to reimburse students’ families for at least half the cost of transporting an average student. The state determines that cost each year. CMSD will have to reimburse just over 2,000 families this year, according to district records. The district spent $1.1 million to reimburse about 1,700 families last year. 

That practice — deeming transportation impractical — is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed against Columbus City Schools in the Ohio Supreme Court. Yost is arguing that Columbus schools did not give the families of about 1,300 charter and private school students adequate notice before denying them transportation.