Some Wake bus riders won’t have service when school starts. How will schedules change?

Wake County’s ongoing bus driver shortage means some middle school and high school bus riders won’t get daily service, forcing their families to provide their own transportation.

Wake school administrators said Tuesday that they’re missing permanent bus drivers for 17 routes, covering 2,000 students, before the start of traditional-calendar schools Aug. 28.

The school system plans to offer daily bus service to elementary school students on those 17 routes. But the district will only provide every-other week bus service, known as an A/B schedule, for secondary school students on those routes.

“We don’t like the A/B piece, but we had to come up with something to try to cover as many students as we possibly can,” said interim Superintendent Randy Bridges.

‘More than unacceptable. It’s embarrassing’

The proposal drew alarm from multiple school board members Tuesday who asked staff to come up with options for providing daily bus service to all the students on those routes.

“To say that we’re not going to have a bus for every kid in the district is more than unacceptable, it’s embarrassing,” said school board member Monika Johnson-Hostler.

Wake hasn’t announced yet which 17 routes will be affected.

The county uses a three-tier bus system where the same bus covers elementary, middle and high schools to stagger start times to minimize how many buses are needed. But Wake is still seeing driver vacancy rates of more than 30%.

Wake will assign drivers who normally act as substitutes for sick drivers to handle the routes without a permanent driver. But Wake says it doesn’t have enough subs to ensure they can provide daily bus service for all 2,000 students on those routes.

A/B bus schedule

Wake plans to use an A/B schedule on those 17 routes where middle school and high school students will get bus service one week and provide their own transportation the next week.

On the week where students don’t have bus service, Wake says it will make every effort to provide delayed service for families who can’t provide their own transportation. But the delay means students would get to school late.

And even though Wake plans to provide daily service to elementary students on those 17 routes, there will be problems for elementary students. On alternating weeks, elementary students wouldn’t get picked up until drivers complete their runs. This means those students will get to school or home late every other week.

“We will attempt to avoid implementing A/B plan at schools with higher needs populations,” according to Wake’s presentation.

The district also says it will consider route proximity to schools in selecting A/B routes.

Impact on students

Bob Snidemiller, Wake’s senior director of transportation, said the A/B strategy was developed to prioritize providing bus service to elementary students on those 17 routes.

But school board members said the strategy runs the real risk of some students missing large amounts of school.

“We will have some kids who will not be able to attend school if transportation is not provided,” said board vice chair Chris Heagarty.

He asked staff to consider options such as changing the start times of some schools to give more time to run buses on all routes.

Other board members asked school employees and other community members who have a commercial driver’s license to help out and serve as bus drivers.

Several board members, including board chair Lindsay Mahaffey, called it unacceptable to not have daily bus service for riders. Mahaffey said she’d rather have students come late to school than not at all.

Wake cutting bus routes

Wake is starting the school year with 560 drivers to cover 577 routes, serving 90,000 registered bus riders. But that’s much less than the 928 bus routes that Wake operated in 2014.

Wake will operate seven fewer routes this school year. Wake had eliminated 123 routes the prior two school years due to lack of drivers. This has led to longer bus routes and more crowded buses.

The shortage has become so acute that on a daily basis some bus runs don’t have a driver available, forcing families to find their own transportation for the day.

This school year, Snidemiller said that the priority when there are uncovered bus routes is to find drivers to cover elementary schools. He said this likely means middle school and high school students on any uncovered routes will have to provide their own transportation.

Demand for bus drivers

There’s a nationwide shortage of school bus drivers.

At the start of last school school year, North Carolina superintendents estimated their districts had 1,342 bus driver vacancies. That’s out of around 14,000 school buses that run each day.

School districts have turned to higher pay and bonuses to recruit drivers.

Wake raised the minimum salary for bus drivers to $17.20 an hour. Wake has also offered a series of bonuses, including approving in March a $200 a month bonus for drivers who have perfect attendance.