Seattle Public Schools keep First Student bus service despite hundreds of violations

Even after state regulators found more than 600 safety and procedural violations by school bus service First Student in the past two years, the Seattle school district has decided to extend its contract with the company.

The district tells KIRO Newsradio that they had an open request for proposals from school bus companies and only had two bids, First Student and Zum Services.

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The proposals were evaluated and scored on multiple points by an interdepartmental SPS team including operations, transportation, and finance.

The scores were close and resulted with First Student receiving the highest score.

First Student has more than 30 years of experience working in the Seattle region, including many years with SPS. In addition to its long familiarity and experience with SPS schools, First Student has the inventory and infrastructure to serve a two- or three-tier bell time schedule.