The Customer

Littleton Public Schools is a premier school district located a few miles south of downtown Denver. It serves Littleton, Columbine Valley, and portions of Bow Mar, Centennial, Greenwood Village, and Englewood. With about 15,000 students, Littleton Public Schools offers a comprehensive education from preschool through Grade 12.

The Challenge

Shortly after becoming the Director of Transportation, Michael Hush found that the district’s special needs transportation program needing help.

He wasn’t new to EverDriven’ alternative transportation model. “I ‘d been working with EverDriven for more than eight years,” Hush said. “I was able to do much more with our existing transportation resources after I’d put EverDriven on contract.”

However, after moving to Littleton Public Schools, Hush discovered some challenges. “The district had recently adopted a new bell schedule, while major road construction was taking place on two main arteries of our district,” said Hush. “This dramatically extended transportation times, so the first thing I did was call EverDriven.”

The Solution

EverDriven’s Model for Special 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

“They took a look at what we were facing and discovered that it was a huge task,” said Hush. “With effort and coordination, they were able to pull together dozens of qualified drivers and vehicles in no time. It was quite impressive.” For Hush, EverDriven has been a big win at both Cherry Creek and now Littleton Public Schools. “EverDriven’s flexibility and timely routes are standout services they offer.” “There were many times when we’ve had a student need a route within 48-hours. EverDriven has proven themselves more than capable of putting a driver on the route and getting the student to their program. This has been tremendous for us.”

The EverDriven Difference 

EverDriven helps transporting its special needs, McKinney-Vento, English language, split foster care with Aurora Public Schools, and general education students. “It’s pretty much the case that if we have a transportation category, EverDriven is helping us with it,” said Hush. Recalling the difference that EverDriven has made, not only for him but for his students and their parents and guardians, he gives an example: “It was the first student we were transporting with EverDriven when I began working with them at Cherry Creek,” he said.

“The student had to go to school at off hours and did not like getting into a vehicle. Their rep made a special effort to help both the parent and the student become more comfortable by taking the driver and the vehicle (a Lincoln Town Car) out to the student’s home and made a special introduction. Not only did the kid hit it off with the driver, he became excited to be able to go to school each day in the Town Car and was even improving in school.”

Hush continued, “The time came when we were able to put the student back on the bus, but he was so upset at the though of losing his ride in the Town Car that we made the decision if the was successful in school, we would invest in his transportation. This is a great example of the difference EverDriven makes in the lives of our students and their families.”

Since that time Hush has found even more cases where transportation has helped students succeed in school. “Outsourcing transportation can be a difficult topic to discuss with parents and even with some schools. We find that when transporting one student, it’s more cost-effective than a bus, but sometimes parents and school personnel will feel that we are trying to ‘farm out’ the student. The success of those students as a result of using EverDriven, helps to convince parents and schools of the value of their services.