Reading School Board Weighs $695K-a-Year Busing Manager

The Reading School District's Board of School Directors takes up a three-year contract for an outside firm to manage its transportation department, a $917,000 state solar grant request for Glenside Elementary School and more than $5 million in construction bills at its Committee of the Whole tonight, Wednesday, October 21, 2026, at 6 p.m. The votes come at the regular meeting on Wednesday, October 28, at 7 p.m. The agenda says opening items and public comment "will take place at the Regular Board Meeting on October 28."

This is the Reading School District, the public school system, not the City of Reading government. The two have separate boards and budgets.

A $694,545-a-year manager for school buses

Item 7.3 approves an agreement with TransPar Group, Inc. "for transportation management services through June 30, 2030." The contract hires TransPar as an independent contractor "to manage, supervise and direct the District's Department of Transportation."

The contract's scope list says what that means. TransPar would audit the district's bus contractors and review their invoices each month, design and maintain the routes for general-education and special-education buses, coordinate all district field trips, employ a bilingual English-Spanish customer-service representative, run a temporary call center at the start of the school year, and develop and monitor the transportation budget.

The base year, July 1, 2027, through June 30, 2028, costs $694,544.51, or $57,878.71 a month, and "includes all operating expenses." Starting July 1, 2028, the monthly rate rises each year by 3.0 percent or the Consumer Price Index, "whichever is greater." The call center is extra: $10,000 for four weeks of two temporary workers, or $20,000 for eight weeks. The contract renews on its own after June 30, 2030, unless one side gives 120 days' notice, and either side can end it without cause on 180 days' notice. The contract's Exhibit B names five "District Assigned Manager Personnel" whom TransPar would supply, along with "their salaries, benefits, etc.": Ken Chase as general manager, two routers, a field-trip coordinator and a customer-service representative. The agenda does not say whether TransPar already supplies those people under an earlier agreement or what the district pays now; the contract is dated "as of" Sept. 3, 2026, references a proposal of the same date that is not posted, and carries only TransPar's signature. Elsewhere on the same agenda, item 6.5 asks the board to excuse Chase and four others "from duty, with no deduction in pay" to attend a March conference, treating him as district personnel. One more clause binds the district: for the term and a year after, it may not hire any TransPar employee assigned to the district without TransPar's consent and a fee of 20 percent of that person's last 12 months of pay.

A solar grant request that tops the state's stated cap

Item 7.5 is a resolution asking the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development for "a Solar for Schools Program grant of $917,000" for Glenside Elementary School. Solar for Schools is a state grant program created by the Solar for Schools Act of 2024 and run by DCED; it pays for buying and installing solar equipment, energy storage, permit fees and utility interconnection at schools, according to the program page. The Oley Valley School Board took up three $600,000 requests under the same program this week.

The grant cap depends on a district's market value/personal income aid ratio, a state measure of a community's wealth. Reading's 2026-27 ratio is 0.8884, per the Department of Education's aid ratio workbook, the top tier. For that tier, DCED's September 2026 guidelines set the maximum at "the lesser of $900,000 or 75% of project cost." The resolution asks for $17,000 more than that. The same guidelines say their provisions "may be modified or waived by the Department unless otherwise required by law," and DCED's application checklist says the board resolution should briefly describe the project's scope; Reading's names only the school. Neither it nor the agenda describes the project, states its total cost or explains the figure.

$5.08 million in construction bills, and a study of Thomas Ford

Item 6.3 approves the October construction bill list, $5,079,576.85 in payments on work already under way. The list includes $150,705.99 to Lobar, Inc. on the Reading High School auditorium, $133,539.20 to Five Star Inc. on the Northwest Middle School auditorium, and $50,511.50 in abatement payments to Ecoservices on the Southern Middle School auditorium, the project the board awarded $3.65 million in contracts for in September. Item 6.1 ratifies September bills of $21,440,615.47.

Item 12.7 hires Kautter & Kelley Architects for a "predesign assessment" of Thomas Ford Elementary School at a cost not to exceed $72,065, a $67,130 fee plus an optional $4,935 for environmental specifications and bidding. The firm's proposal covers the roof, walls and windows, accessibility, building-code compliance, heating, plumbing and electrical systems, and a hazardous-materials survey for asbestos, lead paint and PCBs. It would price a gym addition as an alternate and deliver a "Total Project Cost Estimate" for a full renovation. The proposal says "RSD has not yet determined what grade level or special needs programs are to occupy the facility." The firm estimates 12 weeks of work.

Other building items: a $252,713 playground and play surface at 13th and Union Elementary (12.17), a $166,428 building-automation maintenance renewal with CM3 Building Solutions (12.12), an $86,810 chiller and cooling-tower maintenance program for seven schools with Landis Bonfitto (12.13), $65,950 to repave the rear driveway at 13th and Green Elementary (12.15), and a $12,000 design amendment with SchraderGroup for a Reading High School locker-room redesign requested after construction began (12.1).

Pre-K, IT and a blank line in the budget

Item 8.1 asks the board to approve full-day prekindergarten scheduling at Lauer's Park Elementary and Northwest Area Elementary, 8:05 a.m. to 2:05 p.m., "effective October 19, 2026," nine days before the vote. The agenda says the change is "within the District's existing prekindergarten program" and lists no cost.

Item 7.2 is an information-technology services agreement with Nymbol IT Solutions, Inc. of Wyomissing running November 1, 2026, through June 30, 2032. The agenda says the work is "at the rates set forth in the attached," but the posted agreement prints no rates or prices (its only dollar figures are $500,000 insurance and indemnity limits), and the compensation schedule it refers to is not attached; it says rates will be set in work-assignment schedules "agreed to in writing from time to time." Either side can end it on 60 days' notice.

Item 6.6 is labeled "PLACEHOLDER" and would move "$[XXX]" from an unnamed budget line to the board's travel budget. The amount and the source are blank in the public agenda.

The rest of the agenda includes a compensation study by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association for two employee groups the agenda calls RSAA and RSSSA, not to exceed $8,200 (7.1); a three-year student-employment services deal with Gage Personnel, not to exceed $258,000 (8.2); raising a Northstar Education Advisors consulting contract from $610,000 to $716,000 in state funds (8.32); $315,938 of weight-room equipment from Webster Fitness through a state COSTARS contract (9.1); and two settlement agreements (10.12 and 10.13) with no description or attachment. Personnel items are listed only by heading, with no names, and the board will take them up in executive session tonight without returning to open session.

For how school spending reaches tax bills, see our guide to Berks County property tax explained; our earlier district coverage includes the cafeteria workers contract.

How to attend or comment

Tonight's Committee of the Whole is at 6 p.m. and the voting meeting is Wednesday, October 28, at 7 p.m., both in the Administration Building Boardroom, 800 Washington Street, Reading. Public comment is scheduled for October 28, per the agenda. The district posts board meetings on its YouTube channel, @RedKnightTV, per its Keystone Agenda page.

We will post a recap once minutes or video from the October 28 meeting are available.