HTST Plan (March 2026)

Introduction (Updated: March, 2026)

As part of the Home-to-School Transportation (HTST) funding requirements, Sunnyvale School District is required to annually update and post its HTST Plan by April 1. This update reflects the funding received from the State for the 2025–26 school year, as well as any adjustments to Board Policies, Administrative Regulations, and program implementation.

The District continues to view the HTST Plan as a living document—one that evolves each year based on data, operational experience, and student needs. During the 2025–26 school year, the District made meaningful progress in expanding transportation services, particularly by adding new stops in areas with safety and access concerns. These efforts have contributed to measurable improvements in student attendance and punctuality, especially at the elementary level.

At the same time, this year highlighted operational challenges, most notably related to staffing capacity during periods of multiple driver absences. These experiences have provided valuable insight as the District works to strengthen the program’s long-term sustainability.

Moving forward, the District remains focused on continuing to expand services in a thoughtful and strategic manner, maintaining efficient registration systems, and prioritizing student safety and security across all transportation operations.

Sunnyvale School District's Policy and Practice (Updated: March, 2026)

Our goal is to serve and provide safe and reliable Home-to-School-Transportation (HTST) to as many students (TK-8) as we can with the resources and constraints that we have. 

District staff worked on revising and preparing policies and regulations to create our HTST Plan. These can be seen in Board Policy 3541 and Administrative Regulation 3540.

The District will prioritize student eligibility to and from schools of residence as follows:

Priority One:

Students residing within Safety Zone Transportation areas, as defined in the Transportation Safety Plan, will have first priority when registering for transportation services.

Priority Two:

If there are still available registration spots after priority one, Transitional Kindergarten through fifth-grade students who live more than one-mile walking distance from their school of residence and students in grades six through eight who live more than one and a half miles walking distance from their school of residence will have second priority when registering for transportation services.

Priority Three:

If there are still registration spots available after applying priority two, then students who qualify as socioeconomically disadvantaged will have third priority when registering for transportation services.

Priority Four:

If there are still available registration spots after applying priority three, then students who are identified as English language learners will have the fourth priority when registering for transportation services.

The Superintendent or designee may authorize transportation within the minimum distance when special circumstances and/or safety concerns exist.

This has been created to increase the District’s ability to safely provide HTST to our students and is in addition to the District’s transportation requirements for students with disabilities and/or students experiencing homelessness.

Students with Disabilities (No change from previously adopted plan)

Sunnyvale School District will continue to work diligently to provide students with disabilities Home-to-School-Transportation services. Our district provides alternative transportation to students with disabilities in the form of;

1.     Contracted services from an outside carrier,

2.     Reimbursing mileage expenses to a parent or guardian who transports the student to and from school, 

3.     Other appropriate methods

These options are at no cost to the parent or guardian of the student. These options are all currently offered by Sunnyvale School District and would not be reduced or negatively impacted as part of the HTST Plan moving forward. 

These can be seen in Board Policy 3541.2 and Administrative Regulation 3541.2. 

McKinney-Vento Students (No change from previously adopted plan)

The Governing Board desires to ensure that students who are homeless have access to the same free and appropriate public education provided to other students within the district. The District shall provide students who are homeless with access to education and other services necessary for them to meet the same challenging academic standards as other students.

Sunnyvale’s current practice is to prioritize students who qualify under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Students Act with transportation services in the form of;

1.     Home-to-School-Transportation services as part of our general education bussing services, if the student reside in an area on one of the existing routes,

2.     If the student does not reside in an area on an existing bus route that student is provided transportation in the form of a private contract service provider. This is setup through the Student Services Department

Our HTST Plan will continue to involve our Student Services Department to ensure we account for all McKinney-Vento students. We will use the available registration information that we have from previous years to hold seats open for those students that would qualify but may not have access to registration information. 

Funding Plan (Updated: March, 2026)

Our projected apportionment for 2025-26 is $781,263. This is an increase from what our report showed last year, and our team will be working to address specific areas in which we can use this reimbursement to continue our efforts to solidify and stabilize our services to our students. Such areas would be additional staffing to handle the increasing student population that we focus on providing transportation to.

Implementation Updates (Updated: March, 2026)

1)     Expanding our Services:

During the 2025–26 school year, the District continued to expand Home-to-School Transportation services by adding additional stops for students living on the southeast side of the District who attend Sunnyvale Middle School and Ellis Elementary School. These additional stops were established to provide safer transportation options for students who either live the farthest from their school campus or would otherwise need to cross a major thoroughfare, specifically El Camino Real.

The District also continued its commitment to providing after-school transportation for students attending both Columbia Middle School and Sunnyvale Middle School. These services remain available to support students participating in after-school clubs, athletics, tutoring, and student supervision programs. While ridership at Sunnyvale Middle School has shown a slight increase, after-school ridership at Columbia Middle School has remained relatively low.

2)     Registration  Efficiency:

Student registration for the Home-to-School Transportation program continues to remain automated through the District’s transportation software system. All other registration processes and procedures remain unchanged.

3)     Safety and Security:

The District continues to use RFID bus passes to help track student ridership and improve daily route accountability. Security cameras also remain in use on buses to support student safety and assist in reviewing behavioral or safety-related incidents that may arise during daily transportation services.

4)     Staffing Challenges:

During the 2025–26 school year, the Home-to-School Transportation program experienced significant staffing challenges due to several long-term absences that occurred during overlapping periods of time. While our transportation team remains deeply committed to our mission of providing safe and reliable transportation services to students, the simultaneous nature of these absences placed a considerable strain on our system. Our current transportation model is designed to remain sustainable if the program is down a single driver; however, when the program was down three drivers at the same time, our system was not able to absorb that level of impact effectively.

As a result, the District had to implement several temporary stopgap measures to limit the disruption to students and families. These measures included consolidating Columbia Middle School routes by transporting all students on a single bus rather than operating two buses, cancelling or significantly delaying service to Cherry Chase Elementary on certain days, and experiencing delays of approximately 5–20 minutes on Sunnyvale Middle School routes serving the Ellis Elementary area when staffing shortages occurred.

The District is proud to continue expanding the transportation program and serving an increasing number of students each year. However, this year highlighted that the pace of our expansion reached a point where our system became vulnerable to unexpected staffing disruptions that were difficult to mitigate in the short term.

To strengthen the program moving forward, the District has maintained an open recruitment for a substitute bus driver position throughout the 2025–26 school year and has also posted an additional full-time bus driver position. Unfortunately, despite ongoing recruitment efforts, neither position has been successfully filled to date.

The District also conducted a compensation review and found that our pay scale remains competitive with surrounding school districts, although it is not currently the highest among neighboring agencies. Additionally, the District recognizes that the private transportation industry often offers wages in the range of $50–$70 per hour, which is a level of compensation that public school districts are generally unable to match. As a result, attracting qualified drivers to school district transportation programs continues to be a challenge across the region.

Development of the HTST Plan (No change from previously adopted plan)

District staff will meet at the end of each calendar year to review the HTST Plan and the areas that can be further developed or improved. This will be a multidepartment collaboration including Student Services, Transportation, our site administrators, parents, and local agencies.

This will give district staff the ability to make any changes to the HTST Plan and post those prior to April 1 each year.

Evidence of Consultation

Consultation Requirements with Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) and Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) have been completed by the Santa Clara County Office of Education on behalf of the following school districts in Santa Clara County: Alum Rock, Berryessa, Cambrian, Cupertino, Evergreen, Franklin-McKinley, Loma Prieta, Los Altos, Luther Burbank, Moreland, Mount Pleasant, Mountain View Whisman, Oak Grove, Sunnyvale, and Union Elementary School Districts; Campbell, East Side, Fremont, and Mountain View Los Altos High School Districts; and Gilroy, Milpitas, Morgan Hill, Palo Alto, San Jose, and Santa Clara Unified School Districts. Consultation requirements for EdCode 38900.1 for these school districts in Santa Clara County are satisfied with the following information.

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (regional local transit authority)

VTA Contact: Russell Anstadt, Service and Planning Department; russell.anstadt@vta.org

1. VTA scheduling department has a list of the middle schools and high schools in proximity to VTA transit lines. Schools are contacted by VTA on an annual basis with adjustments made to meet any changes to school bell schedules a. this includes school service routes (lines 246, 247, 256, 270, 287, 288, 288L & 288M)

b. extra buses are also provided to prevent overloads for schools along VTA’s regular service lines

2. There are currently 40 transit lines that serve students in Santa Clara County schools a. six routes (lines 23, 40, 51, 53, 55 & 70) require supplemental service to prevent overloads

3. There are not any other specific resources or programs that VTA offers to school districts

4. VTA’s website provides school service route information available to the public and school districts. Below is a link to VTA’s website regarding school service a. https://www.vta.org/school-trippers

5. For inquiries regarding adding/adjusting routes, contact the VTA representative above

Bay Area Air Quality Management District (local pollution control/air quality district)

BAAQMD Contact: Abby Young, Climate Protection Manager; ayoung@baaqmd.org -

1. BAAQMD funding is available to help upgrade or replace older, high-emitting, heavy-duty school buses with newer, alternative fuel or zero-emission school buses. Resources can be found at https://www.baaqmd.gov/funding-and-incentives/businesses-and-fleets/school-buses

2. BAAQMD developed the enclosed webpage to provide consultation information for school districts to assist in the development of the Home-to-School Transportation plans. https://www.baaqmd.gov/plans-and-climate/climate-protection/local-government-support/school-district-transportation-service-plans.

Conclusion (New: School Year 2025-26)

The 2025–26 school year has continued to build upon the development and expansion of the District’s Home-to-School Transportation (HTST) program. The District made meaningful progress in expanding services to better support student safety and access, while continuing to strengthen systems related to registration efficiency and safety. Through the use of data, the District has been able to more clearly demonstrate the positive impact of the HTST program on student attendance, particularly through reductions in tardies and improved access to instructional time for participating students.

This year also provided important insights into operational capacity, particularly related to staffing, and highlighted areas where the program will continue to be strengthened to ensure long-term sustainability. These experiences will help guide future improvements as the District continues to refine and grow the program.

This update to Sunnyvale School District’s HTST Plan has been developed collaboratively with District staff and the Board of Education. District staff is confident that this plan meets the requirements of the HTST apportionment as outlined in Education Code 39800.1. The District will continue to review and adjust this plan annually to best serve the needs of students and families while maintaining a safe, reliable, and effective transportation program.