Redistricting school bus regions in Rhode Island could save approximately $3.5 million, according to the final report of the special legislative commission studying the statewide school bus transportation system.
The 13-member joint commission found the student transportation network’s five regions are based on an outdated map of vocational high schools, as detailed in the report finalized April 16 but uploaded to the General Assembly website last week. The report suggests increasing the number of regions to nine, serving students who attend schools outside the district where they live.
“It is clear to us as Co-Chairs that the statewide student transportation system in Rhode Island is not efficient, and the significant cost to municipalities is not sustainable,” Rep. Terri Cortvriend and Sen. Linda Ujifusa, both Portsmouth Democrats, wrote in their introduction to the report.
The report summarizes the commission’s recommendations after eight months of meetings. Legislation in June 2024 created the commission, which began meeting in August and convened for the last time on April 7. Commissioners included six members of the General Assembly, plus representatives from unions, school districts, state agencies, plus a student representative.
The commission’s main objective of the study was the statewide transportation system managed by the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE). Debuting in 2009, the system coordinates transit for kids attending public, private, parochial, and charter schools, plus career and technical education (CTE) centers and special education programs. Participating school districts primarily fund the program, with RIDE collecting and dispensing payments via a restricted receipt account to pay third-party bus companies like Dattco and First Student.
Municipalities participate in the program unless they apply for an exemption. The statewide transportation system does not bus students who attend school in the district where they live.
“Rhode Island is one of a small number of states that provides unrestricted, fully-subsidized student transportation for children in private and parochial schools,” the report notes.
But the network’s five-region model is based on the location of CTE schools in 1977 — a much different landscape from the present day. There were only 10 state-owned Career and Technical Centers in 1977; there are over 250 CTE programs statewide today.
On average, CTE and private school students now travel 7-mile routes to their schools, with some routes over 20 miles.
Redistricting bills central to the commission’s vision have been introduced in both chambers. Cortvriend introduced the House bill on April 11. It has not yet been scheduled for a hearing, but it will go before the House Committee on Finance. The Senate, which is catching up after a week’s pause due to the April 21 death of former Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, will hear Ujifusa’s bill, S0972, in its education committee on Wednesday.
Cortvriend and Ujifusa represent the East Bay, which is disproportionately affected by the statewide system as it belongs to the colossally sized Region 3, which includes Providence and other urban municipalities.
“Eighty-five percent of private school transportation comes out of Region 3, placing a financial burden on public schools in this region, particularly Bristol-Warren at the southern end, resulting in some of the highest transportation costs in the state,” the report noted.
RIDE data cited in the final report suggested the cost of transporting students outside their home districts could reach $40 million in this fiscal year, which ends June 30. The state’s overall K-12 transit bill could exceed $140 million when accounting for in-district transportation provided locally, according to the RIDE numbers.
The proposed nine smaller transportation zones could eliminate 30 buses from the statewide fleet and save $3.5 million in transit costs by reducing long-haul routes across bridges and transportation regions.
The nine regions specified in Cortvriend and Ujifusa’s bills are:
- Region 1 would stay the same and include Burrillville, North Smithfield, Cumberland and Woonsocket.
- Region 2 would lose Coventry and West Greenwich to include only Warwick, West Warwick and East Greenwich.
- Region 3 which previously spanned a huge swath of the state from the East Bay to Smithfield, would shrink and concentrate on the urban core and consist of Jonhston, Cranston and Providence.
- Region 4 currently encompasses all of Washington County plus Jamestown and West Greenwich. Under the new proposal, it would consist of Exeter, Jamestown, Narragansett, North Kingstown, South Kingstown, and West Greenwich. (New Shoreham, which would fall under Region 4, is not part of the statewide system according to RIDE’s website.)
- Region 5 stays the same: Little Compton, Middletown, Portsmouth, Tiverton, and Newport.
- Region 6 is new and would serve Barrington, Bristol, Warren and East Providence, formerly in Region 3.
- Region 7 also new, would include Lincoln, Smithfield, North Providence, Central Falls and Pawtucket.
- Region 8 would include Glocester, Foster, Scituate, and Coventry.
- Region 9 would include Charlestown, Hopkinton, Richmond, and Westerly.
The changes wouldn’t happen overnight: A grandfather clause would ease the transition by allowing private school students receiving transport before the end of 2025 to continue under the current model until July 1, 2029, the start of fiscal year 2030.
Alternatively, the state could create a new region for the East Bay within the existing system, then eventually move to the larger redistricting plan if local stakeholders agree.
The commission also wants to see more vans transporting students, as they’re cost-effective compared to minibuses, especially when serving routes with fewer students. A van is about $26,000 cheaper than a minibus, and school districts could save an approximate $750,000 annually if they replaced a few dozen minibuses with vans. Rhode Island’s school transit fleet now uses 150 vans.
Legislation to increase the number of students a van can carry from eight to 10 passed the House on March 25 and heads to the Senate for concurrence. The companion Senate bill by Ujifusa is slated for a Senate floor vote on Tuesday.
The report’s slate of 13 recommendations was crafted nearly unanimously. Rep. Joseph Solomon Jr., a Warwick Democrat, objected to seven of them.
Solomon was concerned about unintended consequences of the redistricting at the commission’s final meeting. Solomon said potential savings “would essentially be passed on to the parents and families who are ultimately going to have to transport their children to schools that may be within those districts,” especially families who send their children to private schools.
“You’re suggesting, maybe if these lines were tweaked in a different way, that maybe you would be more open. Is that what I hear you saying?” Cortvriend asked Solomon.
“I’m not comfortable with any of them right now,” Solomon said with a laugh.
Solomon’s concerns echoed written testimonies submitted during the commission’s tenure from private and parochial schools and families who decried the possible loss of bus services as unfair
“Families who choose private education still pay taxes that support public schools, yet this proposal would effectively penalize them by removing a critical service their tax dollars help fund,” Bonnie Cook, a Burrillville parent, wrote in a letter to the commission.
Emily Copeland, who served as designee on the committee for the Rhode Island School Superintendents Association, urged the commission at its final meeting not to “water down” the redistricting ideas, which she said had been well-received by public school committees across the state.
“If you’re a taxpayer in whatever region you’re in, obviously you can go to schools in those regions, but that doesn’t mean you get transported halfway across the state,” Copeland said, arguing the recommendation is not meant to deprive private school students.
“I don’t think we should water it down,” Cortvriend said. “I just think we might have to acknowledge there are multiple opinions.”
A footnote in the final report states that asterisks are added to the seven recommendations opposed by Solomon.
Exorcising ghost riders
The study commission also investigated “ghost riders,” or students who sign up for statewide bus service but never actually use it. These students exert a phantom presence on the statewide system, the commission discovered, as routes and stops are planned with these no-shows in mind.
Mario Carreño, chief operations officer at RIDE, who served as the agency’s designee, told his fellow commissioners that 550 students signed up last year and never took the bus.
“That’s the size of some small districts,” he said at the April 7 meeting.
Lilian Cordero Gagnon, a student at the Gordon School in East Providence and the commission’s student representative, offered that it’s not always clear who families need to contact.
“I personally have had a friend who signed up for the bus, but that ended up not doing it, and I’m pretty sure she contacted the school, but the bus had been going to her stop for the first couple of months, and still opening the door, waiting a couple minutes and then leaving,” Gagnon told the commission.
Carreño said parents need to call RIDE transit officials to remove a student from the list. He agreed that communication between RIDE, schools and families could be improved.
The full report is available on the General Assembly website, along with all other documents submitted and reviewed over the course of the commission’s meetings.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
