Where Are All the Yellow School Buses in San Francisco?

It’s “Back to School” season. You may imagine a picturesque scene with a bright yellow school bus, a friendly bus driver, and boisterous young students ready to show off their new backpacks. But in San Francisco you would be hard-pressed to find many bright yellow school buses.

School buses are some of the safest and most regulated vehicles on the road. “Less than 1% of all traffic fatalities involve children on school transportation vehicles,” according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Their ceilings are specially designed, so that even in the unlikely circumstance that a school bus flips over, it would not crush its passengers. Not only are school buses the safest mode of transport, but the school bus fleet is the largest form of mass public transportation in the United States. It is about two and a half times larger than all other mass public transit fleets combined. 

SFUSD offers a limited supply of General Education school buses to only 43 of their 122 total schools.

Despite this, very few San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) students ride traditional school buses. SFUSD offers a limited supply of General Education school buses to only 43 of their 122 total schools. School buses are available to only six middle schools and are not an option for high school students. A student has to apply to ride a school bus, and an application does not guarantee a spot. 

Reliable transportation options are especially important in a district like SFUSD, however, because the district employs a student assignment policy, sometimes called a “lottery system,” to decide a student’s enrollment. Families and caregivers rank their SFUSD school choices in order, and though proximity to school is given considerable weight by the district, a student may not end up at their neighborhood school. A 2023 study conducted by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority noted that, “[A]round half of elementary school students [in SFUSD] travel more than one mile to school. One in four students travel more than two miles.”

Corey Hayes, an SFUSD parent of two students who use school buses to get to school every day, lives in the Mission District. Both of his children have Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) that specify needs for certain accommodations at school. Those IEPs, under California law, require that the district provides transportation to and from school. Because there are so few school buses in SFUSD picking up students all across the city, the wait time is long. His children attend school in Bayview, where they used to live, which is at least four miles away from their apartment in the Mission. 

Hayes wants his children to have perfect attendance, but “[T]ransit is the hardest thing about getting them to school.”

“My kid is the last one to get picked up and the last one to get dropped off at the end of the school day. It takes him an hour to get home. His drop-off time is different every day.” If his kids miss their bus pickup time, then Hayes has to leave work to take his kids to school. Hayes shared that he doesn’t feel safe sending his young kids on the public bus (Muni) by themselves, so he’s glad to have the option of the school bus, but the buses are not as effective for his family as he would like them to be. He wants his children to have perfect attendance, but “[T]ransit is the hardest thing about getting them to school.”

SFUSD's limited school bus service

Other cities around the world may be shocked to learn that San Francisco, one of the richest cities in the country, in a state with the fourth largest economy in the world, doesn’t guarantee student transportation to school. It’s not just SFUSD, though. It’s all public schools in California.

California has one of the lowest rates of student bus ridership in the country. Back in 1978, Proposition 13 restructured the way that schools receive funding in California. Schools and communities largely miss out on funding because of capped property taxes. Student transportation costs are expensive, and because schools are receiving limited funding to begin with, transportation costs often fall to the bottom of a district budget’s priority list. An SFUSD district official remarked that, “[C]ontracted school transportation represents approximately 3% of the district's overall operating budget.” Districts are strained between school buses and other programs that contribute to a school community, like arts or STEAM programs. 

After the 2008 recession, school districts continued to suffer from cutbacks for years, and during the 2010-11 school year, SFUSD reduced the transportation budget by nearly 50%, reducing the General Education bus fleet significantly. It’s continuously difficult to hire bus drivers at competitive wages. School districts are constrained to contract bus services out to third-party companies to save money, rather than run them in-house. Currently, SFUSD partners with Zum, a private student transportation services company.

The lack of guaranteed transit to school

School buses are not the only way to get to school, of course. San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) offers free Muni rides for all youth aged 18 and under. Loret Peterson, a teacher and a parent of students in SFUSD, said that taking public transit to school in middle and high school is a “rite of passage” for many students in SFUSD. “It’s part of living here, and that can be an independence thing for kids [to take public transit].” 

Muni is not free for all caregivers or parents, though, which can be a challenge for families who want to take their children to school and not face the $3 charge, each way, to take Muni. Foster students who commute into San Francisco to school must pay other transit fees that SFMTA doesn’t cover. Furthermore, it can be difficult for young kids to figure out transfers, and some parents mentioned safety concerns, given higher rates of harassment toward female and LGBTQ-identifying bus passengers. 

“Your kids could be assigned to a school all the way across town, and if parents don’t feel safe sending their kid on the public bus….well, I think it pushes them to drive [to school] and that pushes them out of the city,” one parent remarked.

Outside of buses, traffic in San Francisco, especially during the school year, can be brutal. Some SFUSD parents mentioned hazardous car drop-off and pick-up zones at their children’s schools. They’re overly crowded, and students are at risk of getting hit by a moving vehicle.

Luke Bornheimer, an SFUSD parent, activist, and founder of Streets Forward, a grassroots movement committed to improving public spaces in San Francisco, said that, “nearly every street that is around an SFUSD school is car-full.” Bornheimer thinks that the city of San Francisco has “so much potential” in terms of implementing changes that would improve public transit and safe biking and walking options for citizens, but there’s a long way to go.

Teachers expressed similar sentiments. Curtis Wang, a former George Washington High School teacher, said that, “I had one student who bussed in [on Muni] from Treasure Island. He came to school tired and exhausted. It’s difficult to function when you factor in getting to school both ways and participating in extracurriculars, like football. The lottery system and the lack of efficient public transit definitely affects kids.” Wang feels that the district’s spending on contracts with privatized school bus companies is not the answer, though. “We can’t improve what’s going on [in our district] if we’re giving money away to privatized bus companies.” 

“A tech company trying to be a bus company"

A member of Smart Union 1741, the union that represents school bus drivers in SFUSD, laid out the situation of “school buses in San Francisco” succinctly: “This whole scenario… if you start digging into it…there is a lot.” 

In July of 2021, a startup called Zum, now valued at over $1.7 billion, signed a five-year, $150 million contract with SFUSD to provide school transportation services; the contract was extended for another five years in June 2026. Zum initially promised to convert SFUSD’s entire bus fleet to electric buses by 2025 — the buzzy tech company is a popular talking point of California Governor Gavin Newsom. Despite this red carpet rollout, Zum’s services in San Francisco haven’t quite lived up to the “state-of-the-art buses” assurance on their website. 

Many experienced bus drivers do not want to get behind the wheel of these new vehicles, citing a litany of unaddressed concerns with electric buses.

To start, Zum’s promise to SFUSD of an entirely electric bus fleet by 2025 fell flat. When asked how many electric Zum buses were used by drivers in SFUSD during the 2025-2026 school year, an SFUSD bus driver responded, “None of the buses used [last school year] were electric.” The driver shared that while a select few of these electric buses provided by Zum were “tried out” a couple of years ago, “[Q]uite simply, those [buses] were trash … they got put out of service.” Zum declined to comment on their prior bus fleet. Zum and SFUSD have recently announced the largest deployment of electric buses in the nation this fall (104 buses), perhaps intended to salvage their undelivered promise of an entirely electric fleet by 2025. 

But, according to the Smart Union 1741 member, many experienced bus drivers do not want to get behind the wheel of these new vehicles, citing a litany of unaddressed concerns with electric buses. (SFUSD is not the only district experiencing issues with Zum — school districts across the country have shared problems with Zum’s route disruptions and lack of communication.) 

When asked for comment on the numerous grievances Zum drivers shared with Current related to the rollout of electric buses in San Francisco, Zum connected Current with a corporate public relations and crisis management strategist as Zum's spokesperson. The spokesperson stressed that “safety is Zum's priority, and that commitment guides every aspect of our service for San Francisco Unified School District.”

Despite Zum’s assertions, multiple experienced SFUSD bus drivers, all of whom asked to remain anonymous, citing potential backlash from their employer, maintain that Zum’s electric buses may not be ready for the school year ahead. These drivers expressed concern that “[T]he electric buses were not actually designed for the hills or the terrain of San Francisco.” They expressed frustration that the large size and unfit tires of Zum's electric buses were inadequate for navigating narrow San Francisco streets, with one driver telling another, “I thought I’d be pulled over for a DUI because of how much swerving the tires caused.” 

“We are not aware of any systemic safety concern involving the tires on our San Francisco fleet,” Zum’s spokesperson responded.  

Electric buses also have different brakes than the school buses that drivers are used to driving. According to multiple drivers, in August 2024, one driver was injured on one of these electric buses after his brakes wouldn’t cooperate while driving down O'Shaughnessy Boulevard, one of the steepest hills in San Francisco — luckily, students were not aboard the bus. To prevent the bus from colliding with oncoming traffic, the driver had to exert excessive force on the lever that would stop the vehicle, causing long-term damage to the right side of his body. Zum terminated the driver following the incident. 

“[N]o one's gonna do anything about these buses until there’s an incident with kids."

A spokesperson for Zum noted that “the incident referenced occurred approximately four years ago during testing of a bus model. That model is not being used in our SFUSD electric fleet.” Documentation obtained by Current and first-hand accounts from drivers corroborate that the brake incident occurred in August 2024, not 2022 as Zum claims. While it’s true that the buses with these specific brakes are no longer in use, drivers’ confidence in Zum has understandably wavered. 

A driver expressed frustration that neither the district nor Zum has taken feedback on safety issues from drivers more seriously. “[N]o one's gonna do anything about these buses until there’s an incident with kids,” he said. 

In addition to the concerns about this new electric bus fleet’s essential gear, multiple drivers are worried about flooding. A driver noted that the school bus depot in Bayview-Hunter’s Point floods every year in the winter time during the Bay Area’s rainy season. Drivers don’t know what will happen to charging stations or the electric buses themselves if (and when) flooding occurs. “Are we even safe getting into these vehicles [when they’re wet]?” The Smart Union 1741 member asked. Zum declined to comment on flooding concerns raised by its drivers. 

Some students will cry because of the lengthy bus rides [...] if it’s not specified in a student’s education plan, there’s no regulation for the amount of time a student can spend on a bus. Some students are seated in a harness for seventy to eighty minutes.

It’s not just gear bus drivers are worried about, it’s the actual technology employed by SFUSD and Zum to set routes. One SFUSD bus driver, who asked to remain anonymous, spoke about the long routes drivers are navigating with students with moderate to severe disabilities on buses. These buses are carrying ten to fifteen students with IEPs, with many of those students requiring harnesses or other equipment while riding the bus because of their disabilities. “Some buses have had up to three kids in a harness at a time … it’s made it much more stressful for drivers.” They said some students will cry because of the lengthy bus rides, and that if it’s not specified in a student’s education plan, there’s no regulation for the amount of time a student can spend on a bus. Some students are seated in a harness for seventy to eighty minutes, as routes can stretch from Lake Merced on the west side of San Francisco all the way to Treasure Island on the east side before taking students to school. When asked for comment on bus route design, Zum stated that routes are “designed so that the number of students assigned to a bus is appropriate for that vehicle,” while incorporating safety accommodations into each student's specific transportation plan where necessary.

It is understandable that drivers may be confused about who is in control: SFUSD or Zum. 

When asked who creates the routes that students take to school, the driver responded, “Zum will say the district made them. If you ask the district, they’ll say it was Zum.” In response to this question, an SFUSD district official stated, “SFUSD owns the routing decisions; Zum provides the transportation operation and technology platform used to implement them.” They mentioned that Zum is responsible for posting the routes and assigning them to drivers. 

It is understandable that drivers may be confused about who is in control: SFUSD or Zum. 

Bus drivers have asked the district for more training, especially training involving working with students with disabilities, to no avail. Instead, there are cameras in every Zum school bus, and drivers feel they are under strict surveillance with high expectations placed on them to get students to school safely and in a timely manner. 

In response to these allegations, Zum connected Current with Angela Watson, an SFUSD bus driver and Vice President of Smart Union 1741, who has previously been quoted in a press release from Zum in 2022 about its safety standards and trainings. Watson shared that she’s a fan of the electric buses, and that, “[W]hen I started, the fumes (from non-electric buses) were so horrible.” While she did not share the concerns about Zum that other drivers expressed, she did emphasize the lack of transportation funding from the district and the state, sharing “There’s so many fewer buses now than there used to be, and that’s hard.” 

The other school bus drivers who spoke to Current emphasized that the past few years have been incredibly difficult for them. Some drivers are considering leaving, or have left already, as companies like Amazon or FedEx will offer drivers more competitive starting salaries. When asked what needs to change, a driver said, “We don’t have enough drivers, there aren’t enough buses, and the district doesn’t want to pay more money.” They added that “I know that people support us… they just don’t see us. We are an incredibly diverse union, and a number of us are graduates of SFUSD. We have been living in the city for decades. This is our home, our community.”

What’s being done?

In 2022, California State Senator Nancy Skinner introduced a bill (SB 878) that would have provided universal home-to school transportation (HTST) to students in California. The bill, which was brought to Skinner’s attention by the California School Employees Association, would’ve cost the state over $1 billion and faced pushback from rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft. The bill didn’t pass, and though part of it got absorbed into the California State budget, not much has improved in terms of HTST.

If a student is getting themself to school without the assistance of a parent or caregiver in the morning, they’re largely on their own in San Francisco.

At the city level, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority outlined a few recommendations in their 2023 San Francisco School Access Plan, including strategies to expand school bus access, infrastructure and safety improvements within the city’s streets, pick-up and drop-off zone guidance for families and SFUSD staff, the inclusion of transportation coordinators, and more. In the three years since it’s been published, it’s unclear if any of the recommendations have been taken up by San Francisco city agencies or SFUSD.

Many family members shared that they haven’t received any information about how to get their children to and from school; if a student is getting themself to school without the assistance of a parent or caregiver in the morning, they’re largely on their own in San Francisco. Students that live in the Southeast and South Central regions of the city frequently experience longer commutes than students located in other regions of San Francisco, and those areas of the city have the highest concentration of Black and Latino students. 

If a student can’t get to school, it affects their attendance. Chronic absenteeism has been associated with lower rates of graduation, and long-term challenges for a student’s future employment, health, and wellness. During the 2024–25 school year alone, SFUSD “lost over $60 million in state funding due to student absences” and lost an estimated 4.4 million hours of learning. 

If San Francisco claims to be at the forefront of international ingenuity and technology, it could start with getting its kids to school.