New statewide coalition calls on Beacon Hill to support passage of Senate Bill 3021/House Bill 3772 – and the aligned proposed amendment to the Senate Economic Development Bond bill – to give Massachusetts school districts the flexibility to serve special needs students, students in foster care, and students experiencing homelessness safely and affordably.

BOSTON, July 20, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Massachusetts Friends of Affordable, Safe Student Transportation (MA FASST) Coalition launched today as a statewide coalition advocating for modernized student transportation. The coalition brings together civic and district leaders, educators, and student advocates united in support of Massachusetts’ most vulnerable students, who deserve a safe, reliable way to get to school, as the status quo is no longer sufficient to meet their needs.

Massachusetts is facing an increasing number of students who depend upon these services, fewer qualified drivers to provide them, and rising transportation costs. Special needs students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), students in foster care, and students experiencing homelessness are most affected by the current transportation system, for whom a missed ride to school is a barrier to their education and stability. According to the most recently available statistics, 33,679 students experienced homelessness under the federal McKinney-Vento Act in the 2024-25 school year, up 34 percent from just two years earlier. Massachusetts needs safer, more reliable, and more cost-effective transportation options to get these students to school.

Forty-one states have already modernized their laws to allow vetted alternative student transportation providers to serve these students safely and efficiently in small vehicles equipped for such purposes. Massachusetts is an outlier: current requirements, such as permanently affixed rooftop signage, limit the number of vehicles that can be used to transport students. This results in an insufficient supply of vehicles, which contributes to unsustainably high costs for districts across the Commonwealth and often poor experiences for vulnerable students, including excessive ride times. Despite ranking among the top-spending states in the nation on student transportation, Massachusetts has not kept pace with the investments that comparable states like Maryland, Oregon, California, Colorado, and Virginia have made in laws to support affordable, safe, modernized student transportation.

A recent report from the Office of the Inspector General (IG) found that a majority of districts reported receiving zero or one bid on their most recent transportation procurement, leaving them with little leverage to negotiate price. According to the report, this lack of competition is driven in part by market concentration, with just four companies providing roughly half of all Massachusetts busing contracts. MA FASST also advocates for addressing these structural funding and procurement barriers alongside the passage of S.3021/H.3772.

That is why MA FASST supports a proposed amendment to the Senate Economic Development Bond bill — one that aligns with Senator Brendan Crighton’s S.3021 and Representative Jeff Roy’s H.3772 companion legislation that modernizes the equipment and safety standards governing small student transportation vehicles under Section 7D of Chapter 90 of the Massachusetts General Laws, replacing antiquated requirements with common-sense, modernized safeguards that 41 other states have adopted for small vehicles that can more safely and efficiently serve many of the state’s most vulnerable students. The legislation expands the pool of safe drivers and safe vehicles to give districts more suitable, vetted options for transporting students on the individualized, cross-district routes that a standard bus cannot efficiently serve.

“There is no more precious cargo or responsibility than to make sure every child gets to school and returns safely home. Fulfilling this commitment requires an army of dedicated transportation specialists who work hard with these families to make sure every child gets to school safely every day,” Mayor Michael Nicholson of Gardner, Mass.

MA FASST’s three priorities are safety, affordability, and flexibility:

• Safety: Alternative student transportation providers implement rigorous standards that include multi-layer federal background checks (including with fingerprinting), continuous motor vehicle record monitoring across states, real-time GPS tracking on every trip, and daily electronic vehicle inspection logs, meeting or exceeding current safety requirements for student transportation vehicles.
• Affordability: In Fall River, transportation costs nearly doubled from $8 million to $16 million in just four years. In Boston, transportation now consumes roughly $180 million a year, or about 12 percent of the district’s entire operating budget. A Chamber of Progress analysis found that alternative transportation for specialized routes can cut per-trip costs by roughly 47 percent on average, allowing districts to redirect those savings back into the classroom.
• Flexibility: Vetted drivers in smaller vehicles can respond to changing pickup addresses, IEP routes, and out-of-district placements that traditional buses cannot serve efficiently.

The coalition’s founding members include mayors from across the Commonwealth. The Joint Committee on Transportation advanced both bills with near-unanimous votes of support from both the House and Senate.

“The Legislature has the opportunity to reduce student transportation costs while providing safe and reliable service by passing this legislation. Further delay isn’t an option when our most vulnerable students deserve safe and reliable transportation,” Mayor Patrick M. Keefe Jr. of Revere, Mass.

MA FASST welcomes parents, educators, school administrators, community organizations, small businesses, and advocacy groups who share its commitment to safe, affordable, flexible student transportation.

To join the coalition, urge your state legislators to support S.3021 (Crighton)/H.3772 (Roy), or to learn more about MA FASST’s work, visit mafasst.org.

About MA FASST

MA FASST — Massachusetts Friends of Affordable, Safe Student Transportation — is a statewide coalition of parents, educators, district leaders, disability advocates, small businesses, and taxpayers advocating for a modernized student transportation framework in Massachusetts. MA FASST supports legislation that gives school districts the tools, flexibility, and resources to get every child safely to school. For more information, visit mafasst.org or contact contact@mafasst.org.

Media Contact

Christine Rashman, MA FASST, 1 2814335067, crashman@piercom.com, mafasst.org

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SOURCE MA FASST