Some of the more than 2,500 high school juniors and seniors who attend the East Valley Institute of Technology’s Mesa campuses saw relief when EVIT and nine school districts announced an agreement over funding late last week. The settlement closed a yearlong dispute over how state career-and-technical education dollars are distributed. For many families, however, the relief was tempered by persistent transportation breakdowns that have snarled traffic, delayed students and prompted a flurry of complaints on social media.
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A line of vehicles queued on a Mesa street, illustrating traffic backups tied to EVIT busing delays reported by the Mesa Tribune.
Photos shared online captured long lines of cars around EVIT’s downtown Mesa campus and a message accompanying one of those images called the situation “a total nightmare,” saying surrounding streets were gridlocked. Parents and school staff in eight of the nine districts that had sued EVIT took to social media to report repeated transportation snafus — buses arriving late, no-shows and drivers unfamiliar with routes and student manifests.
The problems prompted public demands from district leaders. Tempe Union Superintendent Dr. Stacia Wilson posted to parents on July 29 outlining a list of information she said she is demanding from EVIT and its transportation contractor: the name of each driver assigned to transport students; confirmation that each driver meets the qualifications and requirements established in the intergovernmental agreement; the type and passenger capacity of each vehicle assigned to each school; the number of vehicles assigned daily to each school; and identification of the routes serving EVIT’s Main Campus and Power Campus. Her post also asserted that schools had reported what appeared to be Uber and Lyft drivers being sub-contracted to transport students and said district officials had been contacting EVIT daily without getting a response.
EVIT Superintendent Dr. Chad Wilson — not related to the Tempe Union superintendent — pushed back the next day with a public explanation of the steps the institute has taken for drivers. He said all EVIT drivers are required to “have a valid driver’s license, a valid Arizona Fingerprint Clearance Card, and participate in random drug testing.” Wilson acknowledged problems in the opening days of school, saying, “The first few days came with challenges. Building a transportation system from the ground up in a matter of weeks was a significant undertaking, and we experienced some of the expected challenges associated with routes, communication, and scheduling.”
He said the institute has been making adjustments daily to routes and communications with the transportation provider, expanding service as capacity became available, and that the system “continues to improve and become more reliable.” He also conceded bluntly in his statement that the first week was not perfect: “Was the first week perfect? No. But EVIT is committed to listening, improving, and ensuring students continue to have access to the programs they and their families have chosen.”
The exterior of the East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT) campus in Mesa, the school at the center of recent busing and transportation issues.
Still, eight of the nine districts that sued EVIT formalized their concerns in a letter to EVIT’s superintendent, asserting they had repeatedly offered since at least April to keep transporting students to EVIT’s Central Campus using the longstanding district transportation systems — with EVIT reimbursing the districts for those costs. The districts allege the offer was rejected. Their letter said there were “multiple instances in which scheduled transportation either did not arrive or arrived significantly later than scheduled” and raised concerns that many rideshare drivers were arriving on campuses without “accurate routing information, student manifests, and sufficient operational direction before providing service.”
The superintendents made clear they did not want to revisit “past disagreements” but urged EVIT to remedy the transportation issues. They added that the districts “remain willing to revisit collaborative transportation solutions if doing so better serves students and families.” A second letter sent July 31 reiterated the demands; EVIT’s superintendent said he was reviewing that correspondence.
One district involved in the lawsuit, Cave Creek, did not sign the July 31 letter because it is using its own buses to transport students to Mesa. Cave Creek’s superintendent also denied that the group of superintendents had offered to handle all busing operations merely if EVIT paid for it, emphasizing the district leaders’ insistence that transportation be addressed as part of a broader intergovernmental agreement. On Aug. 1, that superintendent acknowledged the start of the school year had been marred by numerous transportation snafus and said the system showed incremental improvement over the first week but fell short of expectations. “We would take two steps forward and one step back, three steps forward and two steps back,” he said, adding that while the situation improved as the week progressed, the performance had been under what he expected.
The transportation row is only the latest chapter in a longer dispute between EVIT and the nine districts that brought the suit. The sticking point had been EVIT’s proposal to alter the amount of state pass-through funding the institute sends to districts for their satellite career-and-technical education programs and to assert more control over those programs. The districts — Tempe Union, Gilbert Public Schools and the unified districts of Apache Junction, Cave Creek, Chandler, J.O. Combs, Fountain Hills, Higley and Queen Creek — went to court after negotiations failed.
In June, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury ruled that the funds the districts received could be used for both their own satellite CTE programs and for programs approved by EVIT. But the judge’s decision left unanswered questions that effectively placed the parties back near their starting positions for the new school year, and no new intergovernmental agreement had been signed in time for the fall semester. Because there was no IGA, EVIT said it could not provide state funding. That left transportation unresolved as well: while EVIT proposed covering districts’ transportation costs — an amount estimated by the districts at more than $5 million — the districts maintained they would not agree to transportation arrangements without a formal IGA in place. Transportation had not been part of the lawsuit, so it could not be adjudicated by the court.
On July 25, the nine districts and EVIT issued separate announcements signaling a resolution to the funding dispute. In a joint statement, the districts said the new agreement provides $5 million in new transportation funding for the coming year and “resolves the current issues around transportation funding and program transparency for all students.” The statement noted that for years those nine districts were the only ones in the Valley required to shoulder certain transportation costs and that the new agreement changes that practice. The districts said they will receive 76% of pass-through funding from EVIT, which they said can now be used “for what it was always intended for: satellite programming that serves students directly in their home districts.”
EVIT’s announcement the same day said that vehicles would be available to transport approved students to and from EVIT’s central campuses and that officials were continuing to finalize pickup locations. The institute thanked families for their patience as it worked through details to implement the new transportation plan. EVIT’s superintendent issued a statement acknowledging the initial hurdles but saying the institute was taking steps to improve reliability and communication as additional capacity became available.
With classes having begun July 27 at EVIT’s campuses, school officials, district leaders and families are now focused on day-to-day operations as the newly negotiated funding arrangement takes effect. The dispute over pass-through dollars and program control that took the parties to court has been formally addressed in the agreement, but operational concerns about getting students where they need to be on time remain the immediate priority for parents, district administrators and EVIT officials alike.
Districts released a transcript of a July 10 meeting showing EVIT Superintendent Dr. Chad Wilson expressed confidence in rapidly building a new transportation system despite warnings, according to an Ahwatukee Independent report. Wilson later noted vans were chosen over buses for routing flexibility, with the first week yielding incremental gains but falling short of expectations as adjustments continued. The eight districts reiterated willingness to resume their own busing with reimbursement to improve reliability for students.
The July agreement also pauses the ongoing lawsuit between EVIT and the nine districts, temporarily halting litigation while the parties implement the new funding and transportation terms.
As part of the settlement EVIT said it will provide student transportation to its Mesa central campuses for the first time in the institute’s more than 30‑year history, backed by a near‑$5 million investment in buses and related services.
The deal includes specific protections for existing programs: EVIT agreed to honor all previously approved programs and not to close programs midyear, and it preserved the court’s prior ruling and the districts’ accumulated 596 funds and any property purchased with those funds.
Earlier in the dispute, EVIT had publicly offered a smaller compromise—proposing in late May to pay roughly half the anticipated transportation costs (about $2 million) and to delay planned campus renovations as a way to free up funding.