Syracuse, N.Y. -- Grace Babilon started waiting for the bus on the first day of school.
It’s been more than a week and she is still waiting.
“It’s never showed up once,” said her father, Tom Babilon, on Monday. He has driven her to school at PSLA Fowler every day.
Babilon also called the district transportation office daily, he said, trying to figure out where the bus was and why it wasn’t coming to his daughter’s stop. After more than a week of leaving messages, someone called Babilon back. They said they’d try to find a solution.
That was Friday. Monday morning, there was still no bus.
“I have no idea what’s going on, other than it’s not working,” Babilon said.
In the city school district, nearly 15,000 students rely on buses to get them to more than 30 schools. There are always hiccups the first few days of school. But this year has been far worse, parents and the district said. Some buses don’t come in the morning. After school, buses have been more than an hour late to pick kids up and take them home, parents said. And students who are bused outside the district to OCM-Boces programs have, in some cases, been left to find their own rides.
Both of the companies the district contracts with for bussing – First Student and Centro – have been slammed by the statewide shortage of bus drivers.
Suburban districts also are struggling, but to a smaller degree. West Genesee last week announced that it was cutting late buses for high schoolers for now. The buses would be shifted to the elementary schools, where bus rides were taking as long as an hour for some kids.
The problem has gotten the attention of Gov. Kathy Hochul, who promised short and long-term solutions across the state late last week. She said the state is reaching out to more than 500,000 people who already have commercial licenses, including those who are on unemployment. The DMV is waiving the 14-day waiting period between permits and road tests for commercial drivers’ licenses.
It’s hard to know what will work. First Student advertises $21.36 an hour to start, will pay for bus-driver training, and is offering a sign-on bonus of as much as $3,000.
Still, several First Student drivers opted not to return to work in Syracuse this year, said Jay Brock, a spokesman.
“The student transportation industry was already managing a bus driver shortage before COVID-19, and the pandemic has only exacerbated the situation. We are no different than so many other job sectors that are struggling to fill openings, including retail, restaurants and hotels,” Brock said.
First Student transports about 11,000 kids in the city school district. Centro does the busing for 4,753 students. Centro had to cut its routes back to a Saturday schedule because it, too, is short drivers.
On Monday, Melissa Gardiner’s son waited more than an hour for his bus to come, sitting on the hallway floor of his Syracuse elementary school with dozens of other kids.
This has happened nearly every day since the first day of school, his mother said.
The kids have to sit quietly; there’s not enough staff to supervise them if they’re playing. And if they’re loud, they’ll miss their bus being called.
Gardiner doesn’t fault the school. They’re doing the best they can, she said. And the principal communicates with parents about how late the bus home will be.
She said her son’s bus to school is also at least a half hour late. But it’s impossible to guess exactly how late it will be.
On Monday, she got a message saying the bus would be 30 minutes late. So she went out to the bus stop 30 minutes late, then waited another 30 minutes before driving her son to school.
“I had work meetings I needed to get to,” Gardiner said. It turned out that the bus was earlier than the school message said, so they missed the bus.
“It’s all so unpredictable,” Gardiner said.
The district said First Student has hired another transportation company, Aladdin, to handle some of its routes, and is trying to hire a second.
Syracuse schools pay $21 million a year for transportation.
“Our kids need to be in school and they need to get to school on time,” Superintendent Jaime Alicea said.
He said the district has tried changing the routes around to deal with the shortage and hoped that First Student would be hiring more drivers soon.
“It’s been very difficult for our families, very difficult for our kids. I hope we’re going to be able to solve this problem soon,” he said. “Our kids need to be in school, parents need to get to work.”
Marnie Eisenstadt writes about people, public affairs and the Syracuse City School District. Contact her anytime email | Twitter| Facebook | 315-470-2246.
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School bus driver shortage slams Syracuse; families wait hours for buses that sometimes never show - syracuse.com
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