Missouri Central School Bus Ends Contract with St. Louis Public Schools Amidst Tension and Layoffs

Mis­souri Cen­tral School Bus Co. has announced the ter­mi­na­tion of its con­tract with St. Louis Pub­lic Schools a year ear­li­er than planned, fol­low­ing a series of strained inci­dents and oper­a­tional dif­fi­cul­ties. The ter­mi­na­tion will result in 332 job loss­es and the per­ma­nent clo­sure of the com­pa­ny’s Spring and Hall Street locations.

The deci­sion comes after months of nego­ti­a­tions between Mis­souri Cen­tral and St. Louis Pub­lic Schools. In Decem­ber, the bus com­pa­ny request­ed an addi­tion­al $2 mil­lion to address infla­tion and a nation­wide dri­ver short­age but was unsuc­cess­ful in reach­ing an agree­ment with the school district. 

The con­tract, orig­i­nal­ly set to run through the 2024–25 school year, includ­ed an opt-out clause, allow­ing Mis­souri Cen­tral to end the con­tract on July 12, 2024.

The rela­tion­ship between Mis­souri Cen­tral School Bus Co. and St. Louis Pub­lic Schools has faced chal­lenges since the dis­cov­ery of a noose near a Black mechan­ic’s work­sta­tion. Sub­se­quent events, such as a dri­ver walk­out that dis­rupt­ed bus ser­vices for one of Mis­souri’s largest school sys­tems, fur­ther strained the partnership.

St. Louis Pub­lic Schools released a state­ment address­ing Mis­souri Cen­tral’s “inabil­i­ty to main­tain enough dri­vers to trans­port stu­dents” and described the com­pa­ny’s deci­sion as eco­nom­i­cal­ly unvi­able. The dis­trict said they were giv­en no advance notice of the pub­lic announcement.

As the end of the cur­rent school year approach­es, St. Louis Pub­lic Schools must now seek alter­na­tive trans­porta­tion solu­tions for its 19,600 stu­dents. Mean­while, Mis­souri Cen­tral School Bus Co. will work with affect­ed employ­ees, pro­vid­ing sup­port through out­place­ment ser­vices and ben­e­fits assistance.