Akron Public Schools appears to have one van transportation company for the upcoming school year: Buckeye Logistics & Transit. The company’s van drivers will serve special needs and other students experiencing homelessness for an estimated $9.4 million — a $7.5 million savings from last school year.
The Akron Board of Education on Monday voted 6-0 to approve Buckeye Logistics’ new, one-year contract. Board member Summer Hall abstained.
Under the agreement, APS will pay $37 per student, per day for transportation within the city; $42 per student, per day for cities bordering Akron and $49 per student, per day for noncontiguous cities. The district will pay additional fees for emergency pickups, transporting students who require one-on-one services and for field trips, according to a draft of the agreement. A final version was not immediately available.
Buckeye Logistics CEO Brandy Turner (formerly Brandy Vickers) was grateful APS allowed her company to continue transporting students. Many of her company’s drivers have transported Akron students for decades as independent contractors.
“It was wonderful the loyalty that we’ve shown to the district is now being shown to us,” Turner said, adding there was “not a worry in our mind” that Buckeye Logistics would be able to transport every eligible student in the district.
Seemingly left out of the equation is Templeton Transportation LLC, another van company that was the district’s secondary service provider the past two years.
“That means we have over 60 drivers that have uncertainty for their work,” Dara Templeton, CEO of Templeton Transportation, said after the school board voted June 22 on Buckeye Logistics’ contract.
APS attorney David Sipusic said the district was tasked with exploring cost reductions, and limiting its transportation contracts was a way to do so. He said Buckeye Logistics & Transit is currently the only authorized van transportation contractor for the 2026-27 school year, adding that it’s outside his purview to determine whether there would be further discussions with Templeton Transportation.
Without board action, Templeton’s contract expires June 30.
Templeton’s CEO said she’d received little communication from the district, including that she was unaware the contract up for renegotiation was to transport all eligible APS students, not just a portion of them — as they had in years past. The last conversation she had with the district was an assurance on May 21 that the contract was close to finalization, she said.
She said when she was made aware of the new option, her company on June 19 offered to transport APS students as a sole provider for about $8.8 million. Those options — shared with Signal Akron — included a flat $880,000-per-month proposal to transport an estimated 1,390 students; or per-student pricing for a base rate of $32.50 per child for in-district transportation, with a separate route and mileage-based price structure for out-of-district transportation.
“If this was all about the bottom line, about funding, then they were not fiscally responsible tonight,” Templeton said after the Akron Board of Education’s vote.
Van transportation costs ballooned
Akron Public Schools paid the two contractors about $16.9 million for the 2025-26 school year to transport unhoused and special needs students to and from class — a $7 million increase from the year prior, district Treasurer Wayne Bowers told Board of Education members at a June 17 meeting.
Van transportation has been a point of contention in Akron Schools for years.
For the 2025-26 school year, APS contracted with Buckeye Logistics as its primary transportation provider and Templeton as its secondary.
Each company was paid on a per-route basis for that school year, with up to seven students per van.
Those charges ranged from $200 to $220 per day, per route, depending on the number of students on the initial route. For subsequent routes covered by the same driver, the district paid $150 to $170 per day, with additional fees for emergency pickups and field trips.
Buckeye Logistics and Templeton Transportation charged the same per route.
The contract costs based on per-route fees versus per-student charges were due to a turbulent bid process where the district’s request for proposals was structured per route.
During a March 30 special meeting, board members discussed the district’s transportation cost overrun – at that time, $4 million more than the $7.4 million it anticipated spending.
Dara Templeton said the high cost for the district came down to how students were distributed between the two companies. Rather than splitting up the district by cluster — which was a proposal during contract renegotiations for the upcoming school year — drivers from both companies were transporting students to and from the same buildings, meaning more routes with fewer students in those vehicles.
In years past, APS contracted directly with the drivers who now make up Buckeye Logistics as independent contractors alongside other companies. Those independent contractors were able to stay as such for the 2024-25 school year, but incorporated under the Buckeye Logistics name for the 2025-26 school year to keep their contracts in place.
Templeton Transportation has served as a secondary contractor since the 2024-25 school year. It transported nearly 300 Akron Public School students last school year. It has 16 other contracts in Northeast Ohio, including with nearby Canton City Schools, where it is the sole provider of van transportation services.
Turner’s company has about 175 drivers and plans to hire another 25, something she said the district requested for Buckeye to be the sole vendor. The pricing shift from per-route to per-student fees will not change anything for her drivers or the families they serve.
Templeton drivers: ‘It’s not just a job’
Nearly two dozen representatives from Templeton Transportation attended the June 22 Board of Education meeting, hoping for news on a new contract.
Templeton Transportation’s contract for the 2025-26 school year included an addendum that required a written, 90-day nonrenewal notice from the district if it did not extend the contract for the 2026-27 school year. The company said it did not receive that notice.
The Akron Public Schools district does not comment on specific contract provisions, APS spokesperson Joanne Isaac said.
Templeton Transportation co-founder and Dara’s husband, Kevin Templeton, said the company has tried to communicate with the district’s administration for weeks but “has not received the level of dialogue or clarification we’d hoped for.”
“How can the board be certain it has all relevant information before making a decision that affects students, families, employees and taxpayers?” Kevin Templeton asked. “How can the board know whether it is receiving the best value, service, safety and continuity available if every option has not been fully reviewed?”
Drivers for Templeton Transportation shared similar concerns.
“Ray Charles could see what’s going on up here, because everything that’s being done – the considerations was always Buckeye,” Templeton driver Daren Williams said. “Templeton was never mentioned in anything, and [at] last week’s board meeting, the last two minutes you throw in there that you have tentatively agreed with Buckeye Transportation and never mentioned Templeton at all — but yet you sat down and asked for contracts from both companies.”
Daren Williams’ wife and fellow Templeton driver, Simone, said she could not imagine Akron Public Schools without Templeton Transportation.
“For this to happen is a slap in the face,” she said.
