![]() Milwaukee Public Schools canceled 160 bus routes in April because there weren’t enough drivers. In the meantime, some districts are cutting back on transportation services. He said the worst effects of the pandemic-fueled shortages are yet to come.Įxperts say the school bus driver shortage could be improved by offering paid training, and better benefits to attract newcomers to the field, focusing on driver retention, and staggering school start times so the same buses can run two routes per shift. “You’re not seeing the full ramification of this because we are just kind of returning to school,” said National School Transportation Association Executive Director Curt Macysyn. And with driver’s license agencies closed for a significant period during the pandemic, districts weren’t able to certify new recruits. But filling those bus driver seats has been a struggle for many districts because of the short hours, rigorous training, and a shrunken pool of substitute drivers. Other drivers have transitioned to jobs in the private sector after a year of being unemployed or furloughed.īecause of social distancing protocols, school buses are operating at about 50 percent capacity, in most places, which means schools will need many more additional drivers as schools reopen. Some are older or have pre-existing medical conditions, making them at high risk for complications from COVID-19. One problem is that many bus drivers are not returning to those jobs when schools reopen. More than half of school districts with 25,000 to 100,000 students said they believed it could take three months or more to resume normal transportation operations. ![]() In a survey taken in March by HopSkipDrive, nearly four-fifths of school transportation professionals including superintendents, directors of transportation, and school transportation staff said the bus driver shortage was a problem for them. A second factor in the shortage, Macysyn pointed out, is that in many places over the past year and a half, departments of motor vehicles were closed or had limited operations, so people couldn't get their road tests or update their qualifications.As more Americans receive COVID-19 vaccines and schools reopen, school districts across the country are struggling to find bus drivers to transport students back to school.įinding school bus drivers has been a longstanding problem for districts, but it’s been exacerbated by the pandemic and the widespread return to school. ( reports the median school bus driver earns $35,421 per year, which varies by region.)īrand-new bus drivers can't be hired on the spot like retail or fast-food workers they need commercial driver's licenses. Respondents to the survey were most likely to say that the pay they were able to offer was a major factor affecting their ability to recruit drivers. Many drivers were furloughed during the COVID-19 school closures in 2020, while others took the chance to retire. He says there are many reasons for the shortage. "In previous years, we've seen regionalized driver shortages, but nothing to the extent that we're seeing today." "This back-to-school period is nothing like the previous periods we've seen," he told NPR. And in Pittsburgh, the public schools notified families that they are short almost 650 bus seats for the first day of school on Friday.Ĭurt Macysyn is executive director of the National School Transportation Association, which conducted the survey with two other trade associations.
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