Bourbon County Schools experiencing bus driver shortage during back-to-school week

Bourbon County Schools says it’s going through a short-term bus driver shortage as back-to-school season continues.

The district says pickup and dropoff times have been delayed for around a half hour. Schools have been communicating with families and keeping cafeteria breakfast open longer in the meantime.

Justin Row is the school district’s Director of Transportation and Maintenance. He says their drivers are going through a “perfect storm” of bad luck, like illness or personal tragedies.

The rest have been working to pick up the slack.

“Everybody's pitched in. A lot of drivers have volunteered to double up routes and kind of combine routes and make sure everybody gets home,” Row said.

They’re working on ways to prevent more shortages in the meantime, and are busy training three new drivers.

“We're working on a bus tracking system, which should be implemented by most all of our fleet by the end of September, so parents won't have to guess if there’s any delays or anything like that,” Row said.

Row says they expect to have everybody back by next week.

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