Durham Public Schools will not expand the use of express stops in the 2025-2026 school year.
DPS Chief Operating Officer Larry Webb told the school board this week that while additional express stops are still needed to streamline routes in future years, implementing them in the fall would unnecessarily “add another variable” to an already complicated process as the district enters its second phase of its Growing Together reassignment plan,
Students in specialty high schools and career and technical education programs already use express stops, which require parents to provide transportation to and from centralized locations (such as nearby schools or community centers), where students are then transported to their magnet schools.
In December, amid the most chaotic stage of the ongoing transportation crisis, the school board had approved plans to expand express stops, as soon as this spring, to include Durham School of the Arts, Rogers-Herr Middle School, and the School for Creative Studies, where students now use express stops only in the morning. After significant community backlash, the district put that expansion on hold, but had not said until this week whether there would be an expansion for the 2025-2026 school year. The district did move forward with family responsibility zones earlier this year, in which some students living near elementary schools no longer receive bus transportation.
Webb said that his team will use next school year to look at a possible express stop expansion for 2026-2027 and beyond. In other efforts to make bus service more consistent to DPS students, Webb also recommended that the district reopen a third bus lot from which to run routes, and continue driver retention and recruitment efforts.
In an update on staffing, Webb said that the district currently has 134 drivers driving 19,107 riders on over 139 routes. That still leaves the district below Webb’s target of 155 drivers. Webb previously said that a staff of 200 drivers would allow DPS to cover current routes (with drivers who do not have additional district duties beyond driving), have a pool of substitute drivers, and possibly even expand service while eliminating the need for drivers to cover multiple routes in a day.
One constant challenge in getting new drivers is the cost of onboarding, which can cost up to $400 in fees for licensing and the Department of Transportation required physical exams. Nonprofit DPS Foundation has recently raised over $12,000, with a goal of $19,000, to assist with those fees.
In the same meeting, Chief Operating Officer Jeremy Teetor’s draft 2025-2026 budget proposal included $377,436 to provide each driver with a $200 monthly local supplement. In light of the series of school cancellations due to snow this year, Teetor said that such a supplement could help drivers have some stream of income even if weather prevents them from working.
Board member Natalie Beyer asked how much it would cost the district to raise the bus driver starting salary to $20 an hour (Teetor said that he would have more information for the April 11 work session about the possible pay compression impact of that increase). Starting salary is currently $18.86 an hour, which Beyer has previously compared to GoTriangle’s $20.64. DPS drivers also only usually work for 10 months a year.
The initial budget proposal will be picked through and revised by board members before it goes to the county commissioners for approval in June.
“If I had to prioritize anything,” said Beyer, “it would be our transportation and making sure we can get kids to school.”
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Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at chase@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.