Katy ISD has contracted American Logistics Company to provide school transportation to the district's homeless students. Until this year, KISD used district buses to transport its homeless students.

"Last year at one point 12 buses and 12 drivers were used to transport around 109 homeless students," KISD Chief Operations Officer Thomas Gunnel said.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan signed the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which includes provisions to ensure the continued education of students whose families become homeless. The act allocates federal funds to states to support programs that provide homeless students with access to public education. Under McKinney-Vento, districts are required to provide transportation to and from the school they last attended before becoming homeless.

KISD runs about 500 buses. However, Gunnell said the district has struggled to hire enough new bus drivers to keep pace with the increasing student enrollment.

"Although the district has continued to add students at the rate of about 3,000 a year, our ability to attract and retain drivers has not been able to keep up with the growth," he said.

Other Houston-area districts have already been using ALC to transport students covered by the McKinney-Vento Act. After talking with representatives from some of these districts, KISD decided to meet with ALC.

"Facing the option [of] either reducing service levels to students now eligible for transportation or find other alternatives to using Katy ISD bus drivers for all transportation, the district investigated the possibility of strategic outsourcing," Gunnell said.

ALC is a national transportation management company that works with school districts, transit agencies and health care facilities. The company utilizes vehicles ranging from mini-vans to buses, depending on the needs of the organization they are serving.

Depending on how successful and effective the contract with ALC is, the district may consider similar contracts in the future, Gunnell said.

"The district may look to additional strategic outsourcing if the relationship with ALC proves as efficient as anticipated.," he said. "A collateral benefit is that the district will save approximately $435,000 based on 201314 figures."