It took three separate meetings, hours of emotional debates, and a thoroughly engaged bloc of van drivers, but the Akron Public Schools’ plan to transport unhoused and special needs students is settled for the upcoming academic year.
Members of the Akron school board voted Monday to ensure that Templeton Transportation LLC would only be used in a supplemental capacity to fill gaps left by the district’s long-time, independently contracted operators (ICOs).Â
The vote, which occurred during a special board meeting to resolve which drivers would be hired, offered clarity less than two weeks out from the route selection process for ICOs on Aug. 15.
“We came to the board because we were not getting the priority that we should have been getting,” said Brandy Vickers, a veteran van driver and spokesperson for the group. “There’s still a fear for the van drivers that even though they say supplemental, how can we be sure that it’s actually going to be supplemental work [for Templeton]?”
During the meeting, board members pressured administration officials to explain why they were pushing forward a board vote to approve a contract with Templeton after it was voted down once and tabled the second time it was proposed, often with visible and audible reactions from van drivers in attendance.
“This is coming down to more than just van drivers,” board member Barbara Sykes said. “This is coming down to trust. This is coming down to whether or not they believe what we’re saying.”
Sykes was concerned about the Templeton contract and job security of the van drivers, but also about the process the administration took to find a solution to the van transportation issue.
“I thought that I could help make a difference, bring answers back to the communities,” she said. “… If we don’t support our public school system, then we won’t have a community. This [board legislation] system is the anchor of the public school system.”
An issue of trust in Akron schools
Several speakers during the public comment period asked why the public would trust the administration with an upcoming levy vote after the transportation debate.
“I want to support the children, but I refuse to support this type of governance,” Pastor Gregory Harrison said. “… If you’re going to handle money and ask for more, then you have to show us you’ve been responsible for the money you already have.”
Joyce Woods, a van driver in the district for the past 38 years, said she’s happy with the outcome. She’s excited to return to the road with students in tow, but she said the saga has cratered her trust in the administration.
“This school board’s a mess,” she said. “I’ve just had it with them. It has taught me a valuable lesson: To get involved.”
As for the school board’s decision to put a tax on the ballot this fall, “Don’t ask me to vote for a levy,” she said, “cuz the answer’s no.”
A compromise to keep the wheels moving
The push for the amended language came from board member Job Perry, though he wasn’t alone in his concern about the initial wording of the administration’s proposal. The original phrasing did not mention the ICOs at all or guarantee they would be the first and primary choice for van transportation.
“We want to make sure it’s the right thing,” Perry said after the meeting. “We all want to supplement the ICOs with Templeton. If the language didn’t say that, then the administration may go ahead and use Templeton for everybody. That’s not what I intended, so I wanted to make sure the language was in there.”
For that work, the independent van drivers were paid about $3.66 million. Over that same time, KBT and UTC combined were paid $3.5 million.
From September 2023 to June 2024, according to figures provided to Signal Akron by the administration, the independently contracted van drivers drove between 86% and 88% of students and were paid roughly half of what the supplemental transportation contractors, KBT Transit and UTC Trans, were paid.
Templeton Transportation, which has not previously contracted with Akron Public Schools, is contracted for a per diem per student rate of $27.86. The administration expects the total cost of the new plan, with ICOs as the primary drivers and Templeton as a supplemental contractor, to cost about $4.1 million.
Previously, the board passed two motions to transport homeless students, who fall under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, and special needs students. The language of those motions left some van drivers apprehensive about how the administration would choose to transport those kids.
The administration says they still need more van drivers to transport the roughly 1,200 expected students this school year. They have also not shelved the idea of reopening the bidding process for a single contractor to handle all transportation needs of special education and unhoused students starting in 2025-26.
“They definitely need to open the lines of communication,” Vickers said. “Transparency should be just that.”
Signal Akron’s Arielle Kass contributed to this reporting.
