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Ohio’s bus driver shortage sets off warning lights for the fourth straight school year

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — For the fourth year, many of Ohio’s more than 600 school districts are starting classes with a bus driver shortage. Districts have to provide safe public and private school transportation, and they’re competing with commercial trucking companies and delivery services for drivers.

A school bus in a parking lot with its door open
[RozenskiP | shutterstock.com]
A survey of districts done for the Ohio School Boards Association revealed around 7% report being fully staffed with an adequate number of subs. Nearly a third of districts need substitute drivers and extra trips to transport all students. In about 13% of districts, office staff and mechanics are driving regular routes. And for about 9% of districts, no solution is working.

“Even with their office staff and custodians that have a CDL and the mechanics driving, they still can’t cover all of their daily routes,” said Doug Palmer, senior transportation consultant for OSBA.

Palmer said the problem with the bus driver shortage is not just the difficulty in finding drivers, but there are also increased challenges for districts in getting students to their school buildings. Since public school districts have to transport private school students too, the increase in students using vouchers is having an effect.

“There are more students eligible or now can afford to attend private schools or non-public schools that they didn’t think of before,” said Palmer. “This has increased the pressure on schools’ transportation departments greatly, because everybody wants to start around 8 o’clock in the morning and they want to get out at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. And it’s just not physically possible to get every bus to every location at the same time.”

Palmer said the survey showed 44% of districts are offering higher salaries and bonuses to combat the bus driver shortage. Around a third are providing increased flexibility for current employees to become certified to drive buses, and the same number are creating 8-hour staff positions for drivers who might otherwise have split shifts. In some cases, parents are being paid by their school to transport their kids.

But the survey reports the hours of a typical driver’s schedule and concerns about bad behavior on buses – which Palmer said is actually rare – are still creating hiring issues.

Since 2021, Ohio districts have struggled with a shortfall of bus drivers, fueled by a wave of retirements and aggressive recruitment by the commercial trucking industry, which was also seeing a driver shortage. Palmer said increased hiring by delivery services from retail to restaurants has also made it more difficult to bring on drivers. Schools have delayed the start of classes or dismissed early to deal with the transportation issues.d

Palmer said it takes about a month for a driver to be hired and go through appropriate safety training before hitting the road with students.