The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District School Committee discussed the potential financial ramifications a lack of excess transportation could have by next month at it’s first meeting of the school year.
Photo credit: Erin Dowding
WILBRAHAM — The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District may be looking at an increase in financial impacts if a lack of excess transportation capacity is not met with relief by October.
The HWRSD School Committee discussed the district’s current transportation and potential costs and impacts going into October at its meeting on Sept. 10 — the first meeting since the 2026-2027 school year began for grades 1-12 on Aug. 31.
Superintendent John Provost said buses have been a struggle for the district traditionally, yet the first couple weeks of the school year has seen the smoothest transportation roll out in the four years he’s been superintendent.
“I feel like there’s not enough wood to knock on,” Provost said. “We have not had to send out a single alert due to transportation unavailability because of driver shortages this year. It’s the second year in our three-tier model, so I think the system is working. Buses are getting in and out of schools quickly.”
Provost said the buses are fully unloaded with students in classrooms by the time he arrives at the high school around 8 a.m. He added the district is at full capacity for drivers, but the “fly in the ointment” is the lack of excess capacity.
“We really should have some excess capacity,” Provost said. “Inevitably, someone will get sick, someone will have a medical emergency, someone will have something that they have to attend to in their lives. Currently, we don’t have the flexibility to handle that in our system.”
There are 18 drivers undergoing training with the Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative, and Provost said it will hopefully bring in excess capacity in short order.
A lack of excess drivers does bring ramifications, such as buses not returning in time after school transportation for athletics transportation, which Provost said will have a financial impact.
“We’ve been told right now that we probably can’t expect any relief until Oct. 1 at the earliest,” Provost said. “I mention that, not only because of the financial impact, but also because of the, sort of, political sensitivities around athletic teams having to go to private transportation. That certainly has come up every year in budget discussions, but the reason why right now is because we have exactly the right number of drivers for the buses we’re running, so they’re not getting back to the school.”
The September impact is $4,400 and increases to around $10,500 if the athletics transportation delay goes into October.
“As the days get shorter, we’re talking about less and less flexibility to push games later with fields that don’t have lights,” Provost said. “[Minnechaug Regional High School Principal Stephen Hale], in his role as athletic director, has done an extensive analysis of what that looks like, and so he can talk to the details of that.”
Hale said he found the near $6,000 increase in October by looking at contracts with LPVEC in September 2025 to the same locations and adding 5% to account for inflation and fuel costs, while also looking at current contracts with outside vendors.
School Committee member Michael Tirabassi said he’s heard the buses are completely full this year, which is an increase from the last school year. Provost said full buses make him happy since there have been concerns of buses running at less than full capacity.
“I think a lot of that had to do with the unreliability of transportation services,” Provost said. “I think if we can keep the stability of the system together long enough for people to trust it, those buses should fill even more. We do have long drop off lines still though, I’ve observed them myself. We do have good efficient systems to move people through the drop off lines quickly though, so we’re not seeing the problems that we’ve had in prior years of traffic backing up onto either Stony Hill Road or Main Street, so that’s good.”
The district is currently booked with outside vendors through Sept. 30 in hopes that additional drivers are available by Oct. 1.
