Nov. 6—BUCKLEY — Jessica Harrand, superintendent at Buckley Community Schools, said she only needs five drivers to fill all of her district's regular routes. Right now she has four.

One driver retired at the end of last school year, which pushed Harrand to start this school year short one bus route.

The open position has been posted since May, and Harrand received just two applicants, one of whom is in the process of getting their Certified Drivers License (CDL). But Harrand said she would like to bring on a few more to be substitutes for when drivers call out.

Buckley offers paid training and has recently increased wages, but every time they lose a driver, the struggle to hire is the same.

"It is always difficult, and it feels like we're not increasing the pool of bus drivers," Harrand said. "I'm just getting bus drivers from other places."

Across the country, school administrators have been offering more and more — paid trainings, increased wages, employee referral bonuses — to encourage people to apply to be bus drivers in their districts, but they are continuously faced with small applicant pools and difficulties with retention.

In rural areas of Texas, the lack of available bus drivers is impacting transportation to football games, according to reporting by The Texas Tribune. In Maryland, students are often late to class because of extended morning bus routes caused by shortages, according to the Washington Post.

And in Michigan, school districts across the state have had to change routes and schedules because they are still short on drivers.

For a number of schools in the region, this has been a continuous problem.

In September 2021, the Record-Eagle reported that Traverse City Area Public Schools needed 12 to 15 more bus drivers to support every one of their routes. This fall, the situation is the same.

"Unfortunately, we're right at where we were a year ago," TCAPS Superintendent John VanWagoner said.

TCAPS needs to service their 270-square-mile district and provide transportation for nearby parochial schools, as required by state law. To maintain the majority of their transportation services, TCAPS tapped other school employees to fill in and cut some routes, which means longer and more crowded rides.

TCAPS is running their transportation services on a fine line every day, VanWagoner said. In September, the school administration sent out an email to families and staff, seeking to understand parent preferences on how the district should adjust, reduce or cancel student transportation for secondary students.

In Leelanau County, Northport Public School did not struggle with hiring and retaining bus drivers until two of the district's bus drivers retired six months ago. Superintendent Neil Wetherbee said he expects one more driver to retire by the end of the school year, he said.

"So we went from being well-positioned to being short," Wetherbee said.

As a result, Northport dropped one bus route, making the bus rides longer than usual.

In the past few months, Northport has received one applicant for the two open positions. That applicant was hired, but they rescinded their interest because they found another job.

For the Bay Area Transportation Authority, which can offer drivers more hours and more flexibility than schools, hiring bus drivers has turned around in the last five months.

In March, they were down more than 30 employees and had cut services by 40 percent, as previously reported.

But, in the last five months, BATA hired 25 more drivers and is up to about 80 percent of their full services, said Eric Lingaur, BATA communications manager. Their applicant pool is also higher quality now, said Chris Davis, BATA director of administrative services.

Recently, BATA began offering a $10,000 hiring incentive to be doled out over three years, which has helped them find people who are invested in staying on as a driver for an extended period of time, Davis said. Through the hiring challenges that BATA has faced, Lingaur and Davis both said it's important for employers to be flexible, and to offer more to be a competitive recruiter.

"We've had to up our game," Lingaur said.

Despite the gains in applicants and employees, BATA does still need drivers. Davis and Lingaur both said the recruiting effort will likely continue at an increased level for some time, especially with the high cost of living employees in the area have to juggle as well.

TCAPS offers sign-on bonuses of $800 or $1,000 depending on experience, a $300 employee referral bonus and up to $23.75 per hour, depending on prior experience. Some of these incentives have worked, but it feels mostly like school districts, transportation authorities or other jobs that require CDLs are just trading employees, VanWagoner said.

"As soon as we get ahead with a couple people, we end up losing somebody to some other Commercial Driver's License (job)," VanWagoner said.

A real solution to the issue would be attracting more people to the profession, especially young people, and making the area more affordable for them to live in, VanWagoner said.

The fact that bus drivers are typically older and more likely to retire in the coming years is also of concern.

A recent state law change rules around retirement for public school staff.

Previously, retired teachers could return to working after 30 days, but they could only make a portion of their pay. Now, retired teachers must wait nine months before returning to school, at which point they can make as much as they want.

This has kept some retirees from returning and filling in as bus drivers at TCAPS this year, VanWagoner said. He said he's trying to advocate with the legislature to make some exceptions for teachers to return sooner.

At the beginning of the pandemic, there were a few drivers at Benzie Bus who quit or retired unexpectedly because they rethought their priorities and wanted to spend more time with family and less time working, said Nancy Hunt, office and human resources manager. Otherwise, the organization has been able to avoid intense shortages for the most part, Hunt said.

Hunt said she's not too concerned about the future of retention and recruitment for Benzie Bus, but the organization is dependent on older people who are retired or partially retired. While this works for the day-to-day, it also means fewer long-term employees and more consistent turnover.

At Northport, Wetherbee said his district's bus drivers are also often older and often people with other careers, such as farmers, who can drive in the mornings and afternoons to round out their days. But it's getting harder to find people who are up for that, Wetherbee said.

"I don't see it improving unless we get lucky and find somebody who's younger and looking for a schedule that's relatively well aligned to their children's," Wetherbee said. "We're gonna offer whatever busing we can but there aren't promises for the future if we don't have bus drivers."