Why Are Portland Public Schools Buses Emblazoned With the Words “First Student”?

Why are Portland Public Schools buses emblazoned with the words “First Student” instead of “Portland Public Schools” or “PPS” or something more straightforward? Who was this mysterious First Student? Why were they so special? —Otto Driver

Obviously, Otto, the First Student was Jesus, sent to Earth long ago to make high school safe for the rest of us. Unfortunately, scholars now believe who we actually got was American Jesus, the blond version who looks like he plays for the Rams and is occasionally seen sitting next to Donald Trump in court. (This probably explains why high school turned out the way it did.)

Anyway, I’m glad you’re not asking the more obvious question why school buses are still running during the teachers’ strike, because WW answered that one online last week.

Why do the buses say “First Student”? It’s all because back in what I’m pretty much required to call the “go-go 1980s,” two British transit bus companies—both of which had already been taking advantage of Thatcher-era deregulation to gobble up their competitors—decided to merge into a corporate black hole they named FirstBus. (Naming it OnlyBus would have made their plans for the U.K. market a little too obvious.)

FirstBus was changed to the ominously vague FirstGroup in 1997, when the company started buying railroads as well. By 1999, it was ready for its first transatlantic acquisition: Ryder Public Transportation Services Inc., the school bus operations arm of the similarly named truck rental company best known for not being U-Haul. FirstGroup paid Ryder an inflation-adjusted $1.7 billion for their new toy.

Then, FirstGroup (which, remember, began as FirstBus) named its new school bus company First Student, because apparently no idea is so shitty that there isn’t someone willing to beat it into the ground. (I suppose we should be thankful it’s not FirstStudent.) In any case, the reason the buses you saw don’t say Portland Public Schools is because they don’t belong to PPS; they’re operated by First Student, who fulfill some (but not all) of PPS’s school bus needs.

One final note: While the company is still named First Student, it’s no longer owned by FirstGroup—in 2021 it was sold to the Swedish global investment organization EQT Partners, the world’s third-largest private equity firm. Unsettling, but I’m sure the new owners will prove to be just as delightful as they sound.

Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.