Again this year, one of the most obvious parts of education is problematic, making sure there is someone behind the wheel on those yellow school buses. It was tough last year and it remains tough this year.
Hamburg School Superintendent Michael Cornell said it’s essential.
“You want to make sure you can get the kids to school. You want to make sure you can get the kids home from school. You want to make sure that you have your late bus runs covered so kids can go to practice and clubs and student government meetings and all that kind of stuff," Cornell said. "It really is an access issue. We don't want kids participating in before and after school activity only if they can get a ride from someone because that presents an access issue.”
One of the central aspects of schools is changing because of the bus driver problem, what are called the bell times. That’s when classes start in the buildings in Niagara Falls, which has 40 drivers and 80 buses, schools will start at different times than last year to make it all work.
Lake Shore Superintendent Dan Pacos has done something similar.
“We tweaked our morning bell times for the elementary, just slightly, by either five or 10 minutes to give buses a little bit more time in the afternoon to get back for that afternoon pickup," Pacos said.
Pacos said the district is shrinking its overall system.
“There are a high percentage of students that take the bus. We're routing, I believe, our transportation director said, at 96% ridership this year, which is high," he said. "We usually route for 75% so that we got leeway but we're crunching it just because of the shortage of bus drivers.”
Niagara Falls Superintendent Mark Laurrie recognizes what can happen with bus problems because last year, there were serious problems getting high school students home.
“We had a rough opening because kids waiting an hour or two for their bus to go home had idle hands and sometimes they had inappropriate behavior. That's number one," he said. "Number two, these are the same children who care for their younger siblings and need to be home first to receive the elementary sibling. Number three. Places need workers. Many of our high school students have jobs. Many of the jobs start at 4 o'clock. They need to be home and ready to go to their jobs and earn money.”
Laurrie said part of the problem is beyond the control of school districts and the State Education Department. Last year, Albany put out a list of those who have the license needed to drive a bus, a CDL, and weren’t known to be working.
Laurrie said his district looked at that list.
“We looked at our region, the Western New York region. We factored out from a long list all those who don't live within close proximity of Niagara Falls. People that could get here in a reasonable time to use their CDL license. We got it down to 24 of those people who were interested. 22 of those people failed the drug test," he said.
That’s a much larger societal problem, particularly with New York State making marijuana legal. Washington requires school bus drivers to be drug tested. That’s why Laurrie said there is no obvious solution.
“It's going to be a long, I think a very long and difficult process but we have to continue to be creative to solve it," he said.
Of course, education is creative.
