Laid off from Durham School Services.

What Durham School Services layoffs have meant for employees

Where the record shows the steps, a district asked for bids or let Durham's contract run out, its board picked an operator, and Durham's notice followed; our WARN tracker shows several of those layoffs set for June 30. Warren County is the clearest look at how the pieces arrived. The district issued a request for proposals as Durham's contract neared its end, and its board discussed the Ecco Ride contract on March 26, according to WSMV, before Durham's notice was filed. The employment dates came separately, in that notice, which set a June 5 closure while the district said Durham would keep providing service through June 30. So the district's procurement record answered who would run the buses next, and Durham's notice answered when the jobs would end. If your yard serves one district and its contract is out for bid, those two records are worth keeping side by side.

The district still needs its buses driven after Durham leaves, and two of these districts made Durham's people part of the switch. Warren County Schools said Ecco Ride was required to offer positions to all qualified Durham employees, and the company held an onboarding event for drivers at the district's Learning & Leadership Center while Durham was still running the buses. In Indianapolis the district said it was working with First Student so that every successful employee who carried IPS students would get a job there, per Inside INdiana Business, and in Spokane, KXLY reported, Zum's chief executive said Durham drivers were invited to apply. The notices reach past the driver's seat, though. Harrisburg's 2020 notice covered 72 drivers and 12 casual drivers along with two dispatchers, a general manager, a maintenance supervisor and two technicians, as the Central Penn Business Journal listed them, so a switch touches more people than the drivers those hiring pitches were aimed at. Even when Durham walked away on its own, declining to bid in Rochester in 2015 over a driver shortage and priorities elsewhere, it said some drivers and monitors would stay with the district's new vendor, according to WXXI. Drivers are in demand across districts and bus companies, the Rochester Business Journal noted in 2026. RochesterWorks, the local employment agency there, said laid-off workers could use its help online or in person. If your district names a new operator and it offers you work, that offer is worth weighing beside anything Durham proposes.

Durham itself has changed hands more than once. National Express Group bought it in August 1999, and Mobico, as that group is now called, sold its whole school bus business, Durham with Petermann and Stock Transportation, to I Squared Capital in July 2025, according to School Transportation News. The parent has since renamed itself Summit School Services, LLC and kept Durham as one of its subsidiaries, School Bus Fleet reported in January 2026. The 2026 New York notices went out jointly in Durham's name and that of Monroe School Transportation, which the Rochester Business Journal calls a Summit affiliate, so those notices still carried Durham's name after the parent company changed its name to Summit School Services. A transaction summary quoted by School Transportation News called the bid season before the sale the first in over a decade in which the school bus business came out net positive.

Durham's 2026 notices went to five states, the latest-dated of them a May 13 California notice that set 51 layoffs for July 31. For people at those yards, the steps for an unemployment claim are laid out for Pennsylvania, New York, Tennessee, Missouri and California, and for Texas, where more Durham notices have been filed than in any other state in our tracker.

A sourced history of Durham School Services layoffs

• June 2026, layoffs after Philadelphia contract loss

  Durham's notice, WFMZ reported, blamed the lost Philadelphia City School District contract, and Pennsylvania's record sets 299 jobs to end June 29. A spokesperson said no reductions were planned at the 51-person Berks County hub in Cumru Township.

• April 2026, Rochester and Watervliet notices in New York

  Joint Durham and Monroe School Transportation notices set 180 Rochester jobs and 78 more to end July 12, and WFMZ put the second site in Watervliet. The Rochester cut, the Rochester Business Journal reported, followed the loss of the city district's contract.

• April 2026, Warren County, Tennessee, contract goes to Ecco Ride

  Warren County Schools took Ecco Ride's lowest bid as Durham's contract expired, and Durham's notice listed 79 jobs. Durham told WSMV the choice rested on cost savings and went against the strong desire of its drivers.

• June 2023, Spokane Public Schools switches to Zum

  After Spokane Public Schools replaced Durham with Zum as its bus provider for fall 2023, Durham's notice to Washington, as KXLY reported it, set 226 layoffs to begin June 30.

• Summer 2020, Charleston County buses go to First Student

  First Student took over Charleston County's buses under a contract worth more than $24 million, while Durham, per Live 5 News, fought on in court after losing a protest and a panel ruling. South Carolina's record lists 465 jobs ending June 30, 2020.

• February 2020, Indianapolis Public Schools moves to First Student

  After the IPS board approved a First Student contract it said would save $7 million a year, Durham's notice to Indiana, as Inside INdiana Business reported it, covered more than 500 jobs, 218 drivers and 243 bus assistants among them.

• April 2019, Hamilton County ends its Durham contract

  Hamilton County's board voted 8-1, according to Fox News, for an $11 million First Student contract, ending Durham's run there; a member said the 2016 crash that killed six children had caused a lack of confidence in Durham. A Durham notice dated April 2019 listed 314 jobs.

What to do if you're laid off from Durham School Services

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Durham School Services's biggest hubs: Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Durham School Services's hub states run: Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.