NAMPA — Around 50 neighbors came united to this week's school board meeting, speaking in opposition to the Nampa School District’s plans to repurpose Union High for school buses.
Last month, the NSD moved forward with a new bus contractor , First Student, instead of renewing a contract with Brown Bus Company which has served the district for 64 years. The NSD board’s vote was largely decided by the lack of clear information provided by Brown Bus regarding the nearly $7 million contract.
Brown Bus did attempt to appeal the school board’s decision, but did not succeed.
Nampa’s decades-long relationship with Brown Bus meant that the busing company had a consistent location on Sherman Avenue. With the First Student contract solidified, the company will need a dedicated lot for its vehicles for the upcoming school year.
Up for consideration was the former Union High School, which sits on the edge of a neighborhood in south Nampa.
As transitions take place this summer, Union students will be moved into the former building of West Middle School by the fall. West was one of four schools the NSD closed at the end of the 2023-2024 school year. This will leave the Union building empty.
With the vacancy, the district has considered moving its busing operations to Union .
As reported by KIVI on July 2, the district said that it would recommend the board of trustees vote to demolish the former Union High and repurpose it for First Student. NSD spokesperson Matt Sizemore detailed plans to create a transportation hub. The school district had also deemed the location as the “NSD Transportation Center” in social media posts made in early July.
This news upset community members neighboring the closed school. A flier circulated to nearby neighbors detailed concerns of maintenance noise, security lights and the consequences of over 100 buses to be parked on the lot.
However, in a press release sent July 10, Sizemore said that the district is still exploring options for the location of a new bus depot.
“To ensure the best possible outcome for our students, staff and community, the district administration has initiated a comprehensive review of alternative locations for the new Transportation Center and Bus Depot outside of the former Union High School/Sunnyridge Elementary site,” Sizemore wrote.
On the surface, the topic of conversation at Tuesday’s meeting was Nampa’s bus center, but as community members took to the podium, it became apparent that frustrations centered around the district’s lack of communication.
“The No. 1 issue comes down to transparency,” Russell Pool, a resident of the Union neighborhood, said. “We can't have a good society without information passing to and fro.”
Neighbor Jim McCracken lives right by the school and said it was obvious that a bus terminal would not fit into the residential area. Going door to door, McCracken and a group of community members collected over 100 signatures of residents in opposition to the lot's placement.
“We elect you to represent us, but the majority of people are not happy with…different situations where we've been basically blindsided or your decisions have already been made before we even have a chance to talk about it,” neighbor Scott Gardner said.
Gardner felt that transparency was the only way for Nampa to improve its image.
“Nampa is looked down upon, our school district is looked down upon, ‘you don't want to live in Nampa because they have a bad school system,’” Gardner said. “So in the whole community, or Treasure Valley, we're looked down upon as one of the least-desirable spots for education. And having lived here over 21 years, that hurts.”
Other residents pointed out that, in order to pass levies and bonds, the district needed to communicate. One resident admitted that he voted against Nampa’s March 2023 bond due to poor optics. That $210.2 million bond would have paid to replace, renovate and upgrade multiple schools and athletic facilities.
Having heard back from the community, trustees affirmed they do not plan on putting the bus terminal in a residential area.
“We should have told you, not the media first,” Chair Brook Taylor said about the lack of communication.
HOW WE GOT HERE
After listening to community concerns, Superintendent Gregg Russell recounted how the district got into its current position.
Russell explained how critical levies are to the district, paying for teachers’ salaries, curriculum and school resource officers. As money has dried up, with the end of pandemic funds and amid declining enrollment, the district has had to make difficult decisions.
Russell said he wants Nampa students to have the best facilities, and part of the failed bond would have gone toward improvements.
“We realized our money wasn't going to go as far (as it would have) a few years ago,” Russell said, speaking to attendees. “Our district was going to go past what they call a ‘critical zone’ for the condition of our buildings.”
Throughout the 2023-2024 school year, the NSD has made cost-saving cuts and closed schools.
“We're going to have to make some really hard changes, some of the hardest changes we’ve had to make in the last 20 years,” Russell said about considerations coming into the school year.
In December, the district spoke with Brown Bus to start planning the budget for the next academic year. Brown Bus estimated a 10-14% increase in costs.
While it was more than the NSD had hoped for, it was manageable according to Russell.
“I shared our circumstances, they shared theirs, and it came to a fairly large increase at that time,” Russell said. “That was tentative, but…we trusted them because they were good partners with us for a long time.”
In later discussions, Brown Bus came back, estimating a 21-24% increase. They offered the NSD options like gradually increasing costs each year or cutting routes to save money.
“None of those felt palatable for me,” Russell said.
According to Sizemore, a 21% increase would have brought the annual busing cost to $9.3 million. This pushed the district to open up the contract for bids from other contractors, rather than accepting Brown Bus' offer.
First Student offered a $7.1 million bid and Brown Bus initially offered a $6.5 million bid. Brown Bus’ bid was unclear, though, with some information left blank. First Student’s bid was ultimately accepted due to Brown Bus’ incomplete bid.
At a later meeting where Brown Bus attempted to appeal the decision, it was estimated that the company’s bid would have been closer to $6.9 million.
“In reality, we will never actually know what their actual bid would have been because their submission was deemed non-responsive,” Sizemore wrote in an email.
With all of this considered, the board went forward with First Student, creating the need for a bus lot.
Russell said that when NSD was approached by KIVI, he didn’t feel the district had the answers, noting the district is still in the process of evaluating possible locations. Despite these concerns, the district went ahead with the interview.
"During that time we were asked by the media, 'where are you going to park,' and so we gave, at that point, our thoughts that we would park at Union," Russell said. "But we were still doing our due diligence and so the reason we did not go to the community at that point — I didn't have all the answers."
Sizemore said that the permitting process was part of the district’s decision to look elsewhere. The NSD discovered on July 10 that the permitting would take several months, far after the beginning of the school year.
A second consideration was the community’s input.
“Instead of going with the option that might save the most money and would have been the ‘easiest’ to turn around into a bus hub, we don’t want to disturb our neighbor’s way of life,” Sizemore wrote.
The district will continue to consider locations for a busing center, with Union off of the table.
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