ARKANSAS, USA — Nationwide school districts are seeing school bus driver shortages, and while that’s been a major issue in our area post-covid, this school year is shaping up to be much better.
Last year many of our school districts saw such a shortage of bus drivers and were forced to cut routes resulting in very long bus rides and delays in routes for some students.
The Fayetteville Public School District says they are in good shape at just three drivers short. They currently run 51 daily routes, with 48 drivers.
“We have other members of the transportation team who have their commercial driver's license who are able to drive to jump in at a pinch, but obviously we'd like to have them doing their other assigned jobs. So we're always looking for new drivers ... the ideal situation would be to have a surplus,” said Alan Wilbourn with Fayetteville public schools.
Assistant Superintendent for the Rogers Public School District Charles Lee says they are in a similar position, with 70 routes and 75 drivers, so they too could use a few more.
“When school starts on Wednesday, you know, we have routes covered right now, but the labor shortage hit all of the schools across America, not just in Arkansas, not just Northwest Arkansas, but across the nation. And schools were scrambling to try and find drivers,” said Lee.
Lee says they’ve been fortunate to not have to cancel any routes. When the first day rolls around, he asks for his parents’ patience as they make some adjustments to routes as needed.
“We'll get the kids home, it may take us a little bit longer in those first three days. What we see happening over those first two weeks is that they get them home a lot quicker, once ... the routes get settled,” said Lee.
The Bentonville Public School District has 121 daily routes and 127 drivers. The district needs 131 drivers to maintain their routes but says they currently have four drivers who are taking their written tests.
The Fort Smith Public School District says they also have all routes covered but are always recruiting more drivers.
Springdale Public Schools are in need of 10 more drivers. The district has 85 routes in addition to 16 special education routes.
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