ST. LOUIS – The school bus company that abruptly dropped Saint Louis Public Schools is having issues in other states as well.

Saint Louis Public Schools had to shift gears to figure out transportation for students at the start of the school year, adding concerns to teacher Nate Gibson’s first year in the district.

“I heard about the transportation issues. It did make me a little bit leary,” Gibson said.
He was worried that students would not make it to his class for English Language Learners.

“The fear is that they’re going to get left behind twice; once by the bus and then once by their classmates because they’ve moved on and we’ve moved on with the curriculum,” Dr. Deborah Schmidt, treasurer for Local 420, the local SLPS teachers union, said.

Despite it all, the union says attendance is on par to start the school year.

“By and large, the attendance has been holding steady all week. At least in my building, we’ve had 80–85 percent attendance every day and anecdotally, pretty much throughout the district, it’s been pretty much the same, around 80%,” Schmidt said.

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Missouri Central School Bus canceled its contract with SLPS in March. At the time, it cited “unprecedented industry inflation and a nationwide school bus driver shortage.” SLPS is not the only district dealing with this issue.

“Sometime in late March or April, we get their initial offer to us, their official offer and it was a 24% increase. That was $1.5 million over what I could afford, and it blew me away,” Dr. Gregg Russell, superintendent for the Nampa School District in Idaho, said.

Missouri Central’s parent company North America Central School Bus was also providing service for Nampa School District, until negotiations there also went south.

“There’s no way I can do that because I cannot cut schools more. I can’t cut more staff. I can’t redraw more boundaries,” Russell said.

As a private company, little is known about North America Central’s finances. But it has been benefiting from the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program. It is a federal program that is investing $5 billion to replace old school buses with new, electric ones. North America Central School Bus announced earlier this year, an EPA grant will bring 105 electric school buses to four of its districts, including East Saint Louis and SLPS. That was before the contract with SLPS was terminated.

North America Central also runs the buses for Alton schools, where FOX 2 has reported on major transportation issues to start the year. Although, the district and bus company say that was due to a software issue, not funding or bus driver shortages. But the common thread is that schools are juggling transportation so students can still learn.

“Having students in school is crucial, especially for English Language Learners so I’m happy that it’s working out. The system may have a few bumps, but I think we’re seeing those bumps ironed out even within a week’s time,” Gibson said.

FOX 2 contacted North America Central School Bus for an interview but never heard back.

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