Bus Driver Shortage

• September 7, 2021
• Andrew Bollman

With schools starting back up, most of what you hear is around politically hot topics like should kids be in person, should masks be required, and what’s in the curriculum. But maybe the bigger discussion should be, how are your kids going to get to school?

Finding school bus drivers has certainly been challenging the last 10 years for a lot of districts, but this year seems to be exceptionally difficult. In a recent nationwide survey of 1,500 school transportation professionals, approximately two-thirds indicated that school bus drivers (and the shortage) is their number one concern. School districts and school bus companies have raised their rates and are offering big sign on bonuses, but in some places it doesn’t seem to be enough to attract drivers.

In some school districts across the country, school administrators had to inform parents late last week that their kids would not have a bus route for school starting today (Tuesday). Administrators had requested parents that are able to drive their kids to school to do so. In some cities like Chicago, the district was offering families transportation stipends up to $1,000 for the first two weeks, and $500 for the following months.

In other districts, they are staggering start times to help both parents and drivers. I watched the the high school neighbor boy hop on the bus at 6:20am this morning, the middle school neighbor girl get on at 7:38am, while my elementary kids got on just before 8:30 this morning.

Driver shortages this time of year aren’t necessarily new in the transportation world, but there certainly is a lot more attention focused on it this year with everything else happening in the world.

Sources: Star Tribune, Wall Street Journal

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