Family & Community Alternative Education
Massachusetts Charter Schools

Charter School Technical Advisory 07-2:
Transportation

The purpose of this technical advisory is to interpret, clarify, and provide guidance about the obligations to provide transportation to charter school students and the reimbursement programs currently available to charter schools for the provision of transportation services.

I. Legal obligations to transport charter school students

The Massachusetts charter school statute, M.G.L. Ch. 71 § 89(ff) states, in part (emphasis added):

The children who reside in the school district in which the charter school is located shall be provided transportation to the charter school by the resident district's school committee on the same terms and conditions as transportation is provided to children attending local district schools. In providing such transportation, said school committee shall accommodate the particular school day and school year of the charter school; provided, however, that in the event that a school committee limits transportation for district school students, the school district shall not be required to provide transportation to any commonwealth charter school beyond said limitations.

• "School district"
  The local district boundary for residency in the case of a single-municipality school district such as the Boston Public Schools is the municipality's geographic boundaries. In the case of regional school districts, the local district boundary consists of the geographic boundaries of the member municipalities (e.g., the local district boundaries for the Wachusett Regional School District is the town limits of its five member municipalities: Holden, Paxton, Princeton, Rutland, and Sterling).
• "On the same terms and conditions"
  The Department interprets this to mean that there should be no significant differences in the transportation services offered to students attending district schools and charter schools. If the district provides transportation to students beyond that required by law (e.g., to regular education high school students in a local district or to students who participate in after-school extracurricular activities), then the same services should be provided to similarly situated charter school students. Drop-off and pick-up distances and riding times to and from the charter school should be comparable to those of students attending district schools. Charter school families would not be exempt from paying any additional fees that may be imposed by districts that provide transportation beyond that required by law. Districts that utilize neighborhood zones to establish eligibility for transportation services for its students may not arbitrarily define a neighborhood zone around a charter school in order to restrict availability of transportation services to charter school students.
• "Accommodate the particular school year and school day of the charter school"
  Charter school calendars and schedules are approved by the Board of Education upon the school's chartering, and can only be changed upon approval from the Commissioner of Education. In many cases, these schedules may deviate significantly-including early dismissals and extended programming-from that of the district in which the charter school is located. Nevertheless, the law requires that the district make arrangements to accommodate the charter school's schedule, even if that requires scheduling additional bus runs at times when the district normally does not pick-up or drop-off students. However, the Department strongly encourages charter schools to work cooperatively with their local school district-including the consideration of requesting the Commissioner to approve an amendment to their schedules-in order to achieve the most cost-efficient transportation service plans, particularly in the case of transporting small numbers of students.

Charter schools and their host districts are strongly encouraged to work cooperatively to ensure that all eligible students receive the appropriate transportation services. Charter school leaders should identify when and how the district's local school committee sets its budget so that they can proactively inform the committee of the charter school's needs in a timely manner.

A charter school may voluntarily choose to provide transportation to some or all of its eligible students, in lieu of having the district provide it. In these cases, the charter school will receive reimbursement as described below in Local District Transportation Reimbursement.

In the event that a district fails to meet its obligations to provide transportation for eligible students, a charter school should contact the Department's Charter School Office (http://www.doe.mass.edu/charter/contact.html) for more information.

The following table summarizes the types of charter school students who are eligible under state and federal law for free transportation services:

II. Reimbursement programs for charter school transportation

There are currently two programs through which charter schools can receive reimbursement for transportation services provided: Local District Transportation Reimbursement if the charter school chooses to transport children who reside in the district in which it is physically located; and Regional Transportation Reimbursement for costs incurred by a regional charter school for transporting children located within its chartered region, but outside of the district in which it is physically located.

1. Local District Transportation Reimbursement

   If the charter school chooses to transport pupils who reside in the district in which the school is located at its own expense and seek reimbursement for the costs incurred, reimbursement is determined by multiplying the eligible pupil full-time equivalency membership (FTE) by a reimbursement rate determined for particular charter school. The eligible pupil FTE is determined by the dates of enrollment for each pupil, provided to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) by the charter school on the February 15th Charter School Claim Form. The reimbursement rate is the lesser of the district or charter school's average transportation cost per student. In general, the data used to generate average cost per pupil is based on prior year school transportation cost data submitted by both the charter and the local school district. The charter school provides this data on Schedule 7C in the Charter School End of Year Financial Report. The local school district provides transportation data on Schedule 7 of the End of Year Pupil and Financial Report. However, if a charter school is in its first year of providing new or substantially different transportation services, no comparable prior year data may be available. In this circumstance, the charter school must contact the Charter School Office prior to the provision of transportation service for further instructions in order to receive reimbursement.

   According to the ESE Guidelines for Student and Financial Reporting, the computation of transportation expenditures should include the annual cost of leased bus services based on the cost of fuel, operation, and common line maintenance of school buses; salaries of student transportation supervisors; school bus drivers and bus monitors; employee benefits; insurance programs; and other related leased bus expenditures. Schools that own vehicles should refer to the Guidelines when computing their transportation expenditures.

   Local reimbursement is distributed as part of quarterly charter tuition payments (see 603 C.M.R. 1.08(11)). If a school submitted a claim for local transportation reimbursement in the prior year, it will receive approximately one-fourth of the prior year amount as part of its first quarterly tuition payment. After transportation and enrollment data has been processed from the February 15th Charter School Claim Form, the charter school will receive any balance due to them as part of its fourth and final quarterly tuition payment.

2. Regional Transportation Reimbursement

   In order to be eligible for reimbursement through the state regional transportation reimbursement program, a charter school must:

   1. Be designated a regional charter school by the Board of Education; and
   2. Have a charter that provides for the transportation of all students who reside in the charter school's designated region but outside the district in which the charter school is located.

   If the charter school meets both of these conditions, the charter school is entitled to claim reimbursement for those students who reside outside the municipality in which the charter is located and reside 1½ miles or more from the charter school (see M.G.L. Ch. 71 § 89(ff) and M.G.L. Ch. 71 § 16C). This program is funded by the state as a specific line item in the state budget and as such, is subject to appropriation. It has been funded at varying levels, from 47% to 100% of the costs eligible for reimbursement, from FY96 through FY07.

   Each charter school's reimbursement under this program is determined by multiplying the total allowable claimed costs by the funding percentage determined by that year's budget appropriation. The cost data for this program is also collected on the Schedule 7C in the Charter School End of Year Financial Report.

   Schools receive the reimbursement in one or two installments during the year following the school year in which the costs are incurred. For example, costs incurred during the 2006 - 2007 school year are reimbursed during the 2007 - 2008 school year.

Questions about information contained in this advisory should be directed to the Department's Charter School Office (http://www.doe.mass.edu/charter/contact.html).