An elementary school student prepares to step onto a bus on Aug. 28 at Columbia Elementary School in St. Louis.
ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Public Schools will look to a tech startup to solve its longstanding transportation problems.
The SLPS board on Tuesday approved a proposal from California-based to run 220 bus routes across the city for $30 million a year starting in August.
The buses are air-conditioned and outfitted with software to track the routes and each rider. The program will also provide the school district with route planning and performance data.
Negotiations for the three-year contract with Zum will start soon, according to the school district. Zum beat out other bidders and current SLPS transportation providers First Student and Xtra Care Transportation along with Yellow Bus Group of America based near Chicago, according to the district's .
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“It’s our time to win as we reimagine transportation,” said Square Watson, SLPS operations chief, at the board meeting.
For years, SLPS and other districts have struggled to get kids to school during an ongoing bus driver shortage. There are additional challenges at SLPS, including dozens of magnet schools for students living anywhere in the city, numerous under-enrolled schools and a significant percentage of homeless students.
The transportation crisis at SLPS escalated last March when primary bus vendor Missouri Central backed out of its $26 million contract with the district. The district’s $40 million emergency plan for this school year includes 19 vendors including several rideshare and cab companies, which have been cited for safety concerns and poor performance.
About half of the district’s routes this year are handled by First Student, which was the primary transportation provider at SLPS before losing out to Missouri Central in 2022-2023.
Children board a bus that is missing proper signage and a license plate at Shaw Visual Performing Arts Elementary School, a St. Louis Public School, on Oct. 14, 2024.
On Thursday, the patchwork plan showed its limits when cab companies declined to drive to schools in the snow, parents reported on social media. The district canceled before and after care but schools were open, unlike most districts across the region that called a snow day.
Leaders from SLPS visited Zum operations in other school districts including Kansas City Public Schools, which has a 98% on-time rate in its first year with the company. Zum also contracts with school districts in Los Angeles; San Francisco; Omaha, Neb.; and Howard County, Md., where the company in 2023 with driver no-shows and canceled routes.
The company is confident it can hire enough drivers in St. Louis by next fall with a starting hourly wage of $28 plus benefits, Watson said.
Zum electric buses are parked before a news conference announcing the Oakland Unified School District as being the first major school district in the country to use 100% electric school buses at the Zum/OUSD bus yard in Oakland, Calif., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024.
Zum is working to convert its national fleet to electric as SLPS is awaiting the arrival of 60 electric buses through $20 million in grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The arrival of the buses, which were also awarded to Ritenour and Ferguson-Florissant school districts, are up in the air because of a federal spending freeze under the Trump administration.
Board applicants
The SLPS board on Tuesday also named its top applicants to replace board member Sadie Weiss, who resigned last month citing unethical behavior and mismanagement of taxpayer funds:
- Velma Bailey, retired SLPS teacher.
- Tanshanee Cole, who registered the nonprofit Dream Academy in 2024 to provide youth and young adults with “work-based learning in the web and tech field,” according to the Missouri Secretary of State.
- Ben Conover, a graduate student at St. Louis University and co-founder of advocacy group Solidarity with SLPS.
- Florie Joy Marzado.
- Sabrina Miller, who recently resigned from the SLPS finance department.
- Kim Squalls.
The board will conduct interviews on Tuesday and the winning candidate is expected to be sworn in at the Feb. 25 meeting. Another 12 candidates including board president Antionette “Toni” Cousins are running for three open seats on the SLPS board in the April 8 election.
An audit released last year found $150,000 in questionable credit card charges and $800,000 in unapproved contracts and salaries under ex-Superintendent Keisha Scarlett, who was fired in September after one year on the job.
The school district suspended 21 credit cards in December after the Post-Dispatch reported on an additional $1.3 million in charges from July 2023 to July 2024 that indicated multiple violations of travel policies including airline upgrades, luxury hotels, entertainment and spending on family members and other non-staff.
This story has been updated with additional information on the transportation contract.
St. Louis Public Schools acting Superintendent Millicent Borishade spoke Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, about the challenges and successes administrators noticed on the first day of school after their primary bus vendor canceled their contract. Video by Allie Schallert, aschallert@post-dispatch.com
