The Spiral Deeper into the Bus Driver Shortage

The national bus driver shortage is affecting many schools across the country, and Fair Grove is no exception. Currently, Fair Grove has 11 routes and only 9 bus drivers.

“Fair Grove is feeling the effects,” Don Brite, Fair Grove’s Transportation Director elaborated, “We are using licensed FGS staff  to run the 2 routes we do not have drivers for. Which means we are paying overtime and we only have 1 other driver to cover a route when a group needs to leave before the afternoon routes are finished.” 

“One of the biggest factors that I hear all the time is the responsibility that the bus driver has. Not only do we have to safely navigate a 30,000 pound vehicle through traffic, we also have to supervise up to 70 students through a mirror,” Brite admitted. At Fair Grove alone, the bus driver shortage has been happening since the beginning of the 2021 school year, and the shortage has had very little fluctuation. Furthermore, the national problem for bus drivers has gotten so bad that it’s affected the starting time of some school days. 

According to the article, Bus Driver Shortage Has States Looking to National Guard to Transport Kids to School by Megan Leonhardt, “Wilmington City Schools … closed for a day after too many drivers were out to provide transportation for the 1,500 students who ride daily … Last week, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker activated up to 250 members of the National Guard to drive school buses throughout the state as needed.”

As for the reasoning behind the bus driver shortage, there are many possibilities. “When I first started I trained myself how to drive a school bus, filled out some paperwork, took a test and became a school bus driver,” Brite continued, “Today it is not that easy. A new driver will have to take 3 written tests to get a permit to drive a bus with no students on board. Then pass a skills test that includes a vehicle inspection, parallel parking from both sides, alley docking, offset backing, and a road test similar to a new driver.”

The efforts to combat this problem have been going on for years. In fact, two years ago, Fair Grove raised the starting pay for a bus driver from $11/hour to $20/hour. Additionally, Fair Grove is also looking into possibly combining routes in order to cut down on the number of bus drivers needed. In his final thoughts, Brite concluded, “Putting more students on a bus and extending ride times is not what we want to do, but we are quickly coming to the point where we may not have a choice.”