As high school students increasingly ask for more work-based learning experiences, districts are tasked with finding opportunities—and a way to get the students there.
Transportation is a longstanding challenge in the K-12 school system, especially given bus driver shortages and rising fuel costs. As a result, district leaders have been coming up with innovative ways to get kids to school buildings for a long time. But career and technical education adds a new layer to the transportation puzzle.
CTE programs operate in different formats; some high schools host their own programs with offsite work-based learning options, while others send students to technical centers or community colleges housing CTE courses.
“In all of those models, students are reliant on transportation to get from their high school to another high school or an area tech center or a community technical college to access programs,” said Alisha Hyslop, the chief policy research and content officer at the National Association for Career and Technical Education, a national nonprofit. And that extra transportation in the middle of the school day can be pricey.
Even if the cost of additional buses is within budgets for schools, the number of students attending CTE programs does not typically fill an entire bus, noted Carl Allen, the chief executive officer of 4MATIV Technologies, an organization that provides transportation solutions to schools.
For example, a CTE program serving 10 students requiring transportation has to consider where each student lives. If the students are spread out, a bus route could become three hours long, said Allen. Instead, schools might “have to route three vans or four vans,” he said.
“All of a sudden you’re talking cost per kid in the zone of like $30,000 to $50,000 a year per kid, and that’s just not sustainable,” said Allen.
One CTE transportation solution that’s worked for districts
Allen is backing a solution he calls strategic differentiation of services, suggesting schools work together to make transportation easier.
Some schools are aligning bell times to be the same or close to each other so bus drivers have an easier route. Other schools are consolidating bus stops, which require students to walk a bit further to get picked up. These changes allow schools to minimize student pickups and make it easier for them to get from one location to a CTE site.
"[Schools and districts] can be as efficient as possible [for CTE transportation] with big buses, and then just be strategic about vans or sedans to be as efficient as they can with those resources for the students on the margin and for the hardest-to-serve students,” he said.
The Western Maricopa Education Center (West-MEC) offers career and technical education to more than 37,000 students from 48 high schools in the Phoenix metropolitan area, making transportation a key logistical challenge, said Scott Spurgeon, the superintendent.
West-MEC has six operational campuses where students can attend classes. Each campus offers a variety of technical classes, depending on the CTE pathway students choose. Students will start their day at their home high school and finish at one of the West-MEC campuses or vice versa.
In the 2023-24 school year, the West-MEC district applied for and received a two-year state grant, which helped them transport students to their West-MEC campuses and back to their home high schools. This included different modes of transportation and support such as buses, We Rides (a system that transports students), individual Uber rides, and gas reimbursements for parents who drove their children.
After the grant money ended, West-MEC had to find a sustainable way to continue providing transportation.
“It’s almost like once you start something, it’s hard not to keep doing that,” said Spurgeon.
Today, West-MEC covers half the cost of the bus driver’s salary and half the cost of their benefits, and a partner district covers the other half and provides the bus and/or van. There are currently five intergovernmental agreements with school districts to provide transportation for students.
“With the tightening of budgets and money being squeezed from everywhere, it comes down to strategic planning and trade-offs—what’s important, what do you value—and to redirect or direct your money in that area,” Spurgeon said.
And West-MEC is looking for creative ways to bridge the transportation gap: Spurgeon said the district purchased land right outside of Agua Fria High School in a partnering school district to build a new campus for CTE programs.
The campus launched in 2025, offering electrical, HVAC, medium-heavy diesel technology, and welding courses. And in summer 2027, there will be four additional programs offered like building and flying drones, architectural design, plumbing, and low-voltage electricity.
“If the students can’t get to us, we’re going to get our campuses closer to the students to try to eliminate that transportation barrier,” said Spurgeon.
