SPECIAL REPORT
Grappling
With Driver Shortages Continues Despite Funding Promises
Written by Amanda Pampuro
Senior driver Steve Boswell checks the wipers on his Tulare City School District bus in central California. The school district has remained fully staffed in part by cross training its mechanics.
T
hroughout the pandemic, school districts adapted week-by-week to the transportation needs in remote, hybrid and in-person learn- ing models. With talk of bolstering summer
school programs and potential increases in fall ridership comes the familiar challenge of finding enough bus drivers to cover needed routes. With $122 billion available for schools via the Amer-
ican Rescue Plan comes support for summer and after-school enrichment programs to address pandemic impacts on education. New programming will likely require additional busing. Even if funding is propor- tionately allocated to transport students as school programming increases—and whether the money comes depends on how the state and school districts divvy up federal funding—finding new drivers remains one of the industry’s greatest challenges.
18 School Transportation News • JUNE 2021
“We’re in the early stages of trying to orchestrate this,” said Larry Albert, transportation director for Orange County Schools in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Toward the end of April, Albert said he was looking at a six-week summer school schedule with full-day and half-day op- tions. But a big question remained: How many students would sign up and need transportation? A survey of 100 school districts released around the same time by the Center on Reinventing Public Edu- cation found more than half of schools responding did not communicate any plans for summer programming, while 12 percent only offered a broad vision. As the 2020-2021 school year closes, transportation
departments across the U.S. are also scrambling to main- tain routes for fluctuating needs with an ever-decreasing pool of drivers. “That would totally be a shot in the dark at this time,”
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