DANBURY — The nationwide shortage of school bus drivers has meant some students continue to arrive at school and home late, sometimes even after 4 p.m.
The school district has had to pay staff to supervise students after school as they wait for their buses. Officials this week started monitoring when buses arrive and depart daily, something they used to do only for late buses.
“Now we’re just tracking every bus every day, just to get a handle on where the problem areas are,” said Superintendent Kevin Walston, who said he has received at least 50 emails from families with complaints.
But he told the education board on Wednesday that the situation has improved since the first week of school. Two more drivers joined this week, which allowed the district to add two buses, Walston said.
“The first week we were so concerned,” he said. “Quite frankly, we thought were going to have to do something drastic to make sure kids got home in a timely fashion. It improved the second week. It continues to improve.”
Administrators have been working with Student Transportation of America, but need to discuss with the bus company whether its meeting its contractual obligations, he said.
“They’ve been tremendous partners over the years,” Walston said. “But we do need to talk because it’s having an impact on the district on another side because we have to pay staff to supervise kids after school because our buses are late. The impact is real now.”
Students are not penalized if their bus is late. Two to three buses are late consistently.
“We’re trying to find and understand the root cause of that,” Walston said.
Some former drivers did not return to work this school year, while the district added buses, but didn’t have the drivers to ride them, he said. The bus company has needed to consolidate routes in the mornings when drivers are unavailable.
Other school districts have experienced similar problems across the state and country. The state is working with school districts to address the problem and plans to make it easier for people to become bus drivers, Walston said.
Another problem is the app parents use to track the buses. The app is sometimes inaccurate due to routes being consolidated in the morning, Walston said.
Plus, school board member Joe DaSilva said the app shuts off at 4 p.m.
“But if they're not going to have kids home by 4, and they don't seem to be able to do that, then we need to fix the time,” he said.
Walston was unaware of the app shutdown and said he’d check with the bus company.
“It’s one thing for the time [of the routes] to be off, but to see it totally off is, I’d imagine, a little unsettling,” he said.
The athletic department has struggled to find drivers to take athletes to away games and off-campus practices, but has managed so far.
“We didn’t impact our activities for kids,” Walston said.
The schools are considering eliminating the tents at the high school where students each lunch outside, which would shorten the school day and get the buses running sooner.
“Then that means our afternoon runs would be a lot more efficient,” Walston said. “I'm not suggesting we do it for that reason, but there could be some benefit.”
Either way, the district needs to find additional minutes for the bus routes “in someway somehow,” he said.
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September 26, 2021 at 05:05PM
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Bus driver shortage still vexing Danbury - Danbury News Times
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