“There needs to be some accountability,” said Rutile Bakshi, a Colombian father of two daughters, sharing the frustration of hundreds of other families. More than 1,000 people have signed a petition calling for Superintendent Michael Martirano to resign.
The unrest in Howard County this week is one chapter in a larger story. School districts are struggling and often failing to find enough staff to get students to and from school. In many school systems, this problem defies easy solutions, sometimes with dire consequences.
The Chicago public school system, which has about half the drivers it needs, announced in July that: services may need to be restricted For certain categories of children, including children with disabilities. Some other companies offered fare cards to use public transportation.
official of charlottesville Parents were told that the year would begin without 12 routes running.and in louisvilledue to a misfire at the opening ceremony, some students were unable to return home until nearly 10 p.m., and the city canceled school for more than a week to reset logistics.
New York City’s bus troubles could last into September: Drivers for the nation’s largest school system are threatening to go on strike on Tuesday, the first day of class.Prime Minister David C. Banks and Mayor Eric Adams Outlined your backup plan This includes Uber and Lyft rides for students with disabilities and children of immigrants.
While the shortage of bus drivers has caused many problems, other difficulties have also arisen, such as problems with contracts with private bus companies. (Some districts own their buses and hire drivers directly, while others use contractors.) In New York City, the issue is between private companies and drivers’ unions. This is an impasse in labor negotiations between the two countries.
“This has been an unusually high-profile year,” said Molly McGee Hewitt, chief executive of the National Student Transportation Association, which represents school districts across the country. There is little recent data on the driver shortage, but Hewitt said she sees the situation as uneven, with some areas having severe problems and others having almost none.
Maryland is a great example. Montgomery County, the state’s largest school system, has filled bus driver slots this year and has backups available if needed. But Howard County, a high-performing school district with more than 57,000 students located between Baltimore and Washington, didn’t shy away from it. commotion That led to calls this week for the leader to resign.
And neighboring Prince George’s County, the state’s second-largest school system, has more than 210 vacancies out of 1,200 bus driver positions. Prince George’s Schools spokeswoman Raven Hill said another 217 of the school’s bus routes will be replaced by drivers operating temporary routes as the school system continues to hire more drivers. It is said to be covered.
Erica L. Groshen, Economic Advisor Cornell University ILR School and former head of the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, said economists are more likely to think of job shortages as “wage shortages,” especially for jobs that don’t require long-term training. Wage increases may be appropriate, she said.
There are other creative solutions, she said. These include finding applicants from different groups, improving working conditions and benefits, and finding other ways to distribute work among employees.
“I think the school system has probably been underpaying drivers for a long time, and maybe the school system needs to look at that,” she said. Perhaps “the chickens have come home to roost,” she added.
Some debated how closely this problem is tied to the driver shortage.
Zum Transportation, the contractor involved in the Howard County issue, is based on the West Coast and is fairly new to yellow bus transportation, said Kurt Masin, executive director of the National School Transportation Association. said. His industry group represents bus companies.
“The challenges the district is facing may be a reflection of their newness to the district,” he says. “It’s easy to paint this as a consistent nationwide problem of bus driver shortages, but in reality it’s all local.”
Macy-Shin said there was a shortage of bus operators during the early months of the pandemic, but the problem is no longer widespread. Localized shortages were evident even before the pandemic, he added.
Louisville school officials announced this week that they have hired a company to redesign bus routes by reducing the number of drivers, increasing bus service, and greatly dispersing school start and dismissal times. But that meant a longer, less familiar route for drivers, and school district construction didn’t allow for the additional stops in time. Superintendent Marty Pollio called the results a “traffic accident” for the 96,000-student system and apologized for poor implementation.
Louisville schools spokesman Mark Hebert said that in response to the Aug. 9 disruption, elementary schools were closed until Aug. 18, and middle and high schools were closed until Aug. 21.
Still, Hebert said the system’s biggest problem is the lack of bus drivers. They say they need at least 100 more people. The last day of school dismissal is 4:20 p.m., but some students return home at 6:30 or 7 p.m. The superintendent said major changes would be needed to make the system work. One of the options he is considering is reducing the number of students eligible for bus transportation.
Albemarle County Public Schools spokesman Phil Giaramita said Charlottesville schools have been steadily removing students from waiting lists for bus transportation, recently increasing bus driver pay to about $21.50 an hour, the highest in the region. It is said that he pulled it up.
He said the waiting list for bus riders has dropped from nearly 1,000 to less than 700, and the district expects hundreds more students to come off the list over the next two weeks. Bus transportation is critical in the 720-square-mile county, Jaramita said.
“We’re making great strides to get back to where we should be,” he said.
In Maryland, Howard County parents erupted in anger at a school board meeting Thursday night, with some calling for school to be canceled. zum‘s $27 million contract will involve nearly half of the system’s students.
Zum CEO Ritu Narayan said in an interview on Friday that bus routes were not pre-digitized by the district and 20 bus drivers did not show up on Monday. Zum also inherited a 100-driver shortage from his previous contractor, he said. Still, she says the problem won’t last long.
“When everything comes together, I’m confident we’ll see a huge change in this community,” she said.
Martirano faced the issue again at Thursday’s meeting. He noted the importance of getting students back to school, even though attendance numbers were down compared to the same period last year. “I don’t forget that we started the year talking about the importance of attendance. I don’t forget that Howard County, as a school system, has not been able to provide transportation on time and reliably for many students. “I haven’t,” he said.