Ten days into the new school year, Rutherford County Schools still has two bus routes without a permanent driver, including a long, traffic-heavy run near John Colemon Elementary School in Smyrna that officials say no contractor is willing to take. The district has hired three of its own drivers to help patch the gaps while it works toward what one official calls a permanent fix.
Chief Operations Officer Trey Lee told school board members Tuesday that district leaders are pursuing solutions for the two unmanned routes, according to WKRN News 2. Lee said flatly that no contractor is willing to take the John Colemon Elementary route because of how long and congested it is. In the meantime, the Siegel High School route is being covered by two contractors who have temporarily split the run between them, the district told the station.
Rutherford County Schools began classes on August 10, and the district's newly hired in-house drivers are already being put to work. One of the three recently hired drivers will be assigned to the John Colemon Elementary route, a second will take over the Siegel High School run, and a third will help relieve drivers who are currently juggling multiple routes at once, per the station's report.
A Contractor System Under Strain
Rutherford County Schools primarily relies on private contractors, rather than district employees, to provide the buses and drivers that get students to and from school. That structure is unusual for a district of its size: as reported by Tennessee Firefly, RCS depends on more than 120 independent owner-operators to run over 1,000 daily bus routes, making it one of the few large Tennessee districts without a fully centralized public fleet. Neighboring Murfreesboro City Schools, by contrast, owns its entire bus fleet and directly hires all of its drivers, according to WGNS Radio.
Lee also told board members that some contractors are in breach of contract because they have not sent the district a full list of their drivers, a requirement due 10 days before the first day of school. If contractors continue to fail to provide that list, the district will send a 30-day notice by mail, and what happens after that will depend on further action by the Rutherford County School Board.
“We're going to need a policy eventually so we're not doing this every year,” Lee said, according to the station's report, pointing to the recurring uncertainty around route staffing as a problem the district needs to solve structurally rather than patch year to year.
Lessons From February's Insurance Scare
The current gaps follow a far larger disruption earlier this year. In February, roughly 40 contracted buses were grounded after a private contractor lost its mandatory liability insurance coverage, an emergency that forced a special school board meeting, as Hoodline previously reported. In response, the school board voted that spring to purchase district-owned buses to supplement the contractor model, a move intended to prevent future route abandonments and stabilize routes left uncovered.
The district has also been trying to make contractor work more attractive. In May 2025, the school board approved a four-year agreement that included a 17% rate increase in the first year, 2.5% annual increases through year four, and a $4,000 annual stipend per bus to help offset rising insurance costs, following driver threats to stop service over pay and working conditions. Ahead of this school year, the district approved new pay tiers and competitive hourly rates in July aimed at recruiting district-employed drivers for hard-to-fill routes, including benefits designed to compete with private commercial driving jobs.
Growth That Outpaces the System
The district also trimmed its own transportation demand during 2025 budget talks by creating Parent Responsibility Zones, eliminating bus service for elementary students within one mile and middle schoolers within 1.5 miles of campus. That policy removed 15 buses from service and saved the district roughly $3 million by shifting some transportation duties onto nearby families.
None of those measures change the underlying pressure: Rutherford County Schools now serves more than 52,000 students across 50 campuses, making it Tennessee's fourth-largest district after adding more than 20,000 students since 2002. Long-term projections show enrollment topping 56,000 by 2030, meaning the tension between rapid suburban growth and a contractor-dependent bus system is likely to keep testing the district for years to come.
Tennessee law also underscores the stakes on the roads these buses travel. Drivers who illegally pass a stopped school bus with its red lights activated and its stop arm extended face fines and eight points on their license, according to a notice from the Rutherford County Schools Facebook page, a reminder aimed at motorists as students settle into morning and afternoon routes across the county.
