FRAMINGHAM - During their meeting at the Memorial Building on Wednesday, March 20, the Framingham School Committee unanimously voted to recommend sticking with NRT Bus, Inc. as the district’s school bus provider for the 2024-25 school year with the expectation that an in-house busing model would begin the following summer.

The committee has been mulling the question on how to resolve the city’s ongoing bus driver shortage for months. Framingham’s contract with NRT calls for 77 drivers to get students across the community to and from school; during the 2023-24 school year, only 57 drivers have been servicing the city at most.

With Framingham Public Schools (FPS) continuing busing operations into the summer months, Executive Director of Finance and Operations for the district Lincoln Lynch reminded School Committee members that a decision had to be made.

Essentially, Framingham could have either stuck with NRT for the upcoming school year or elected to switch to an in-house model, where bus drivers would become city employees.

Lynch told the committee on Wednesday that the likelihood of getting 65 in-house drivers hired by the start of the next school year—the budgeting for which was outlined by Lynch back in February—is currently “very low.” He added that there are no guarantees that making drivers city employees this year would instantly improve services on the first day of school in the fall.

School Committee Vice Chair Jennifer Moshe of District 3 believes that the in-house model would be best adopted for the 2025-26 school year, as that would give the city time to properly prepare services. In the meantime, she said keeping NRT on board for the next year would be the best course of action.

“Basically, you’re creating a new business,” Moshe explained to her colleagues.

“Is there any guarantee that it’s going to be better? Nope, but we can make sure that we’re doing it correctly and that the day we’re going to go live in-house, we’re 100% where we’re supposed to be.”

Lynch agreed with Moshe, contending that the logistics to get the in-house model ready for this summer would be too much to handle. He added that the short-term NRT plan with eyes on an in-house system down the line also makes sense financially, as the related transportation budget request for FPS’ 2025 fiscal year can be dropped while better terms on the NRT deal could be developed due to their inability to provide 77 drivers.

District 4’s Adam Freudberg has been a major advocate for an in-house model, calling the vendor system a method that has been “(chronically) failing” within Framingham during Wednesday’s meeting. He did agree that getting an in-house model ready for August would be unrealistic, but he reiterated that he wants a plan to switch prepared for the start of July 2025.

“Let’s continue to hammer this out,” Freudberg said.

“I think if this motion passes tonight, I think that’s the next step: the district’s implementation plan. I think you have time to set this up for success, and it gives us time to continue to talk to our partners in government—the mayor, the City Council...we need a team effort.”

Freudberg added that while he ultimately hopes NRT can succeed during the remainder of the current school year as well as the next one, he wants the city to hold the vendor accountable for what the terms of their contract has called for.