Bus blues: Leon County Schools driver shortage causing delays, particularly at middle schools
School started over a week ago, and Leon County Schools' lack of bus drivers is causing bus delays for schools across the district.
In a Facebook post Thursday afternoon, the district said they have only 95 drivers for 115 bus routes.
"We have increased bus driver salaries and are advertising as much as possible but our district — like many throughout the state and country — is short (on) drivers." the post stated.
"We apologize for the delays at the start of the school year," Superintendent Rocky Hanna told The Democrat. "I can assure you we are working each and every day to ensure the safety of our children and to make sure they're getting to and from school in a timely manner."
Currently, anyone with a commercial driver's license at the district's transportation department, including managers and supervisors, is driving a bus route.
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If one of the three bus routes — high school, elementary and middle school — experiences delays, then the following routes are impacted, the post said.
Middle schools are the latest to start in the morning and the last for end of day release, and they are the most delayed.
The "stacked" delays are causing more frequent and longer than normal wait times for buses because of the lack of drivers and long parent pick-up lines, the post said.
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The district advised parents to sign up for their student's school email listserv to stay updated about bus delays.
"Thank you to all of our bus drivers — we truly appreciate your service to our school district," the post stated.
This is the fourth year in a row the district hasn't had enough bus drivers for the start of the semester.
This year, Leon County Schools hiked bus driver pay to $18 an hour, waived the fingerprinting fee and will help applicants get their commercial driver's license.
In the past five years, bus driver pay has increased from $11.47 to $18.08.
At the end of July, Superintendent Rocky Hanna said the district had 97 bus drivers, two more drivers than the most recent post on the district's Facebook.
In 2019, a failure of the school district's bus system left children stranded at stops in the first few days of school. During the debacle, buses were hours late during pick-ups and drop-offs, and drivers navigated unfamiliar routes from directions printed on paper.
Contact Ana Goñi-Lessan at AGoniLessan@tallahassee.com and follow her on Twitter @goni_lessan.
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Leon County Schools' bus driver shortage causes delays
