![]() The school year is only 180 days, and drivers usually aren’t compensated for holidays, PTO, or summers without work. In some states, like Mississippi and Arkansas, pay averages less than $12/hour.īefore hitting the road, a new driver must obtain a commercial driver’s license - a process that can take up to 12 weeks and cost thousands of dollars. Nationally, bus drivers earn a salary of $16.80/hour. This makes it harder for them to take on side hustles or second jobs to supplement their income. Like Morgan, many bus drivers have decided that the sacrifices they make aren’t justified by their paychecks.īus drivers typically work a split schedule, meaning they work in 2 shifts: One in the morning, and another in the afternoon. “I need the money, but it’s just not worth the risk,” she tells The Hustle. Sally Morgan, a Georgia bus driver in her late 60s, left her job at the start of this school year over safety concerns. Buses are enclosed spaces, which experts say pose higher transmission risks.įrom Georgia to Florida to Michigan, bus drivers are dying of COVID-19 at an alarming rate as the Delta variant sweeps the nation.Kids Workers in this age bracket are 40x more likely to die from COVID-19 than those in the 18-29 age bracket.īy nature, the job also comes with a higher risk of infection: This year, as schools have reopened, many of the remaining drivers have also quit voluntarily over health concerns.Īt 56, the average school bus driver is 14 years older than the median US worker. These drivers went on to find other transportation jobs, and it’s been extraordinarily difficult to recruit them back. Though school districts were given $13.5B in federal aid to weather the storm, many didn’t use any of the money to pay transportation contractors.īus companies - which rely on the 180-day school year for business - were forced to furlough or lay off their drivers en masse. The current shortage began to mount last year, when 95% of all K-12 schools in the US transitioned to remote learning. ![]() ![]() This year, though, many districts say they have 30%-50% fewer drivers than needed to adequately fill the demand. At the beginning of most school years, districts and private bus companies often find themselves short-staffed by a few positions. School bus driver shortages aren’t a new phenomenon. More than half of surveyed districts categorize this shortage as “severe” or “desperate.” In a recent national survey, ~81% of districts reported not being able to find enough school bus drivers to fill their needs. When times are good, these companies rake in serious dough: In the 2019 fiscal year, First Student reported $1.85B in revenue and $173m in profit - 15x more than Greyhound.īut right now, the wheels on the bus aren’t going round and round. On the private side, 3 companies - First Student, National Express, and Student Transportation - dominate the market. The other 40% are owned by private transportation companies that hire their own drivers and contract their services to schools. In total, the nation’s 13.8k school districts spend a collective $22B/year on transportation.Īround 60% of the nation’s 500k school buses are owned and operated directly by districts, which hire their own drivers. Please try again!ĭelivered weekdays plus a bonus Sunday feature. First, a glance at the school bus marketĭuring a typical year, 55% of all K-12 students - some 25m kids - use school buses to get to class. The Hustle talked to nearly a dozen bus drivers, school officials, and trade groups to find out. In New York, officials have launched a multi-agency recruitment effort targeted at 500k+ drivers with commercial licenses.In Pennsylvania, some districts are paying families $300/mo to voluntarily opt out of bus pickups.In Texas, teachers and basketball coaches are being asked to drive buses before school.The shortage is quickly becoming a national crisis: Officials in Ohio and South Carolina are planning to follow suit. Mayers’ tweet Mayers’ home state of Massachusetts, the school bus driver shortage has gotten so severe that the governor recently deployed ~250 National Guardsmen to drive kids to school. To make the trip happen, the school had to hire a private party bus complete with neon lights and stripper poles. Per the usual protocol, he tried to book one of the district’s many chartered yellow school buses.īut this time, a problem arose: There were no drivers. Last week, Jim Mayers, a high school composition teacher in Boston, wanted to take his 11th graders on a field trip.
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