Lewisville ISD voted to bring its transportation services in-house for the 2025-26 school year. In a recent school board work session, district leaders said the decision is a cost-saving measure in the midst of a budget crunch. The vote has led to layoffs at the company that currently manages transportation for the district.
The district has hired a new transportation director, and Superintendent Lori Rapp introduced Dana Chandler in the role during the work session.
The change ends the district’s more than 30-year partnership with transportation contractors. The school’s current contract with Texas Central School Bus will end on July 30 and will result in 460 layoffs, according to documents the company filed with the Texas Workforce Commission.
“Due to issues that we’ve been experiencing ... we issued a request for proposals in February of 2025 and we also ultimately were able to start interviewing candidates for consideration of taking transportation in-house,” Rapp said at the work session.
Ultimately, the district was looking at rising costs to renew its contract with Texas Central School Bus. Lewisville ISD bought its fleet of 286 buses in 2020.
For the current fiscal year, Rapp said, Lewisville ISD has $16 million for bus transportation service.
“We only get $3.5 million from the state for bus transportation,” Rapp said. “To continue with a contract provider, we figured that it was going require us to increase the budget somewhere between $3 and $5 million. And given that we’ve not been able to provide a raise for staff — and you need $3.7 million for a 1% of the midpoint raise — we just could not see recommending to you all an approach that would cause us to have to take that much money and put it into transportation.”
Rapp said bringing transportation in-house would require a budget increase, but would mitigate the cost of renewing the contract at a higher cost.
The district has been weathering rising costs and voted earlier this school year to close five elementary school campuses, a measure that addressed stagnant enrollment numbers on some campuses and a deepening budget crisis that public schools are facing across the state.
The decision comes during a shortage of bus drivers available to serve Texas schools. School board member Katherine Sells said morale among bus drivers has been low, and that an in-house department could allow the district to serve future staff with district benefits.
“I’ve talked to several drivers, and I can tell you, most of them don’t feel appreciated,” Sells said. “And I hope that we actually welcome and extend them as a part of our family. That’s really important to me.”
Texas Central School Bus didn’t respond to a request for an interview or information.
The decision did deliver a sting in the form of the mass layoffs reported by the contractor.
The bus company sent a required Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification letter to the Texas Workforce Commission, reporting that it would permanently close all three of its Lewisville ISD locations, including the Purnell Road and Mill Street locations in Lewisville and the Cougar Valley location in The Colony. At the Purnell site, the closure will eliminate 88 bus drivers, 55 coach drivers, seven trainees, four shop workers and 10 office staff. The closure of the Mill Street location eliminates 57 bus drivers, 71 monitors, one trainee and two office staff. At the Cougar valley location, the closure will eliminate 74 bus drivers, 46 monitors, 30 coach drivers, two shop workers and three office workers.
All bus driver and monitor jobs are represented by the Teamsters union.
Lewisville ISD officials have posted jobs to staff the newly created department, and have increased bus driver pay to $23 an hour and bus monitor pay to $15 an hour.
Rapp said bringing bus service into the district allows the district to pay higher salaries while still mitigating the costs of continuing with Texas Central School Bus. Rapp said transportation staff will be able to receive retirement benefits through the district.
The district planned to communicate changes in bus service with Lewisville ISD families soon after the board’s work session Monday.
“It’s going to be a transition — you’re going to have to be patient with us,” Rapp said during last week’s meeting. “But we believe, in the long term, this will pay benefits not only in the budget that it will help us, that we’ll have to spend, but also in service to our families.”
LUCINDA BREEDING-GONZALES can be reached at 940-566-6877 and cbreeding@dentonrc.com.
For more than 120 years, the Denton Record-Chronicle has been Denton County’s source for locally produced, fact-based journalism. Your support through a tax-deductible donation or low-cost subscription is vital to our ability to deliver credible, relevant, unique coverage of our community.
