Fewer bus routes, more principals driving: How schools respond to bus driver shortage

ALLEN COUNTY — School districts are increasingly reliant on parents, custodians, principals and teachers to drive school buses when drivers call out sick due to a shortage of drivers.

At Allen East schools, administrators and the superintendent himself earned their Class B commercial driver’s license to fill in as substitute drivers.

Bus drivers at Spencerville and Perry schools work as aides between routes to lengthen their workday, and Perry schools has recruited parents and retired drivers to assist with routes as needed.

The shortage is fueled by several trends, including retirements, a competitive labor market and the traditionally short work day for drivers, particularly substitute drivers who are called upon with little notice whenever another driver is out sick.

Districts responded by boosting driver pay, offering additional jobs to drivers who want a longer workday and relying on their own employees for help, but when those efforts fail to recruit enough drivers districts are resorting to consolidated bus routes and staggered start times.

Such is the case for Elida schools, which may eliminate bus routes for children who live within village limits or two miles of their school, consolidate bus stops within routes, stagger start times for elementary students or stop busing open enrolled students who live within the district if it is unable to fill five vacancies before the start of the coming school year.

“No decisions have been made yet, but unless we suddenly find about half a dozen drivers in the next week we won’t have a choice other than to implement some of these measures,” Superintendent Joel Mengerink said via email.

The district’s previous efforts to recruit drivers through incentives resulted in several new hires over the years, Mengerink said, “but not to the level that it will help us fill our shortage that we currently have.”

Delphos schools found success with an innovative recruitment strategy: inviting the public to test drive buses in the high school parking lot and shadow veteran drivers on the road.

The district hosted its first Drive a Bus Day in April, inspired by a similar initiative at Perrysburg schools.

Eleven people attended, four of whom are now training for the CDL-B, said Transportation Director Drew Wertenberger, who anticipates several retirements in the near future.

“I don’t want to be that one district that has to let the parents know, ‘Hey, bus five is going to be running 45 minutes late due to the bus driver shortage,’ ” Wertenberger said. “I don’t ever want to do that.”