The Customer

Henrico County Public Schools (Henrico) is the sixth largest public school division in Virginia, and is comprised of 72 schools and program centers serving more than 50,000 students. The division’s schools reflect the geographic diversity of Henrico County, and lie in bustling near-urban and suburban settings; small towns; and quiet rural areas.

The Challenge

Looking to find a way to simplify and drive economic efficiencies within its special needs transportation program, Henrico began thinking about outsourcing to a third-party provider. “We had two subsets of students we were transporting – exceptional education and private placement special needs students, and McKinney Vento,” said Josh Davis, Director of Pupil Transportation, Henrico County Public Schools. “Fluctuation in both demand for these services, as well as available drivers and vehicles was creating some challenges for our district. What we really needed were professional drivers, well-maintained vehicles, and a way to transport our special needs students that we could afford.”

The Solution

EverDriven’ Model for Alternative Transportation Needs

EverDriven supplements districts’ transportation programs using a combination of SUVs, minivans, wheelchair accessible vans, and sedans to assist students. Populations include McKinney-Vento, ESSA, ESE/special needs, and out-of-district students, as well as hard-to-serve and multi-district trips. Small capacity vehicles allow districts to stop paying for unused capacity and have flexibility to expand and contract their fleet. EverDriven accomplishes all this while reducing the cost of transportation programs by 20-30%.

The Result

“We had known about EverDriven and had been in communication with their team over the course of several years,” recalls Davis. “While we liked what they had to offer, EverDriven didn’t have a large footprint in our region. As they began to expand their operations, our purchasing department became more comfortable with the idea, and this made it possible for us to engage with them for special needs transportation services.”

After making the decision to outsource its special needs transportation to a third-party provider, Henrico issued an RFP. EverDriven School was one of two providers selected by the district to fulfill two sub-sets of its special needs transportation program. One for exceptional education students and another for private placement special needs and McKinney-Vento. “The decision was based on written proposals, oral presentations, experience of the providers, references, and cost,” said Davis. “Because the funding is different for each program, we broke-up business across EverDriven and the other provider.”

In addition to the private placement students, Henrico also leverages EverDriven to transport students to the district’s comprehensive schools. “EverDriven has been able to help us simplify and streamline transporting our out-of-district and long-distance students,” added Davis. “In these cases, it simply wasn’t practical for us to have one child on a bus.”

Henrico began working with EverDriven in August 2018. “We appreciate EverDriven’s ability to work together and quickly resolve issues,” said Davis. “EverDriven will go the extra mile to ensure that not only are we comfortable with the process and the services being offered, but that the parents and students onboard are as well.”

The EverDriven Difference 

One recent example of this was a middle-school student who was located in a very rural area. The child had been transported using a bus, but that was no longer available. Davis recalls, “We explained that we would be moving their daughter’s transportation to EverDriven. The mom had engaged an advocate and was very adamant that her daughter have a female driver. EverDriven found the perfect driver and even set up a meeting with the student, her mother, me, an EverDriven representative, and the driver. They showed up early one day before school and sat with them until they were comfortable. It was smooth sailing from that point.”

“The child is doing well in school and with her EverDriven transportation, I can’t think of a better testament to the success of this program,” Davis adds. “EverDriven has also been able to help Henrico with reducing student ride times. They include routing efficiencies, quick turnaround on dispatching and routing changes, and communication regarding ETAs or no-shows. “Anytime we’ve had an issue, the EverDriven team has been able to help solve it,” said Davis. “The quality of EverDriven and the success of our students has created more support within our Exception Education Department. They love the program so much and have even uncovered funding for it.”