Company gets students to, from school without buses

Every weekday at 7:45 a.m., Michael Craft is notified that a rideshare driver has arrived at his home in Aurora, Colorado. Craft walks outside to confirm the driver’s identity and then helps his foster teenager into the car, sending him off to high school about 15 miles away.

The platform he uses, HopSkipDrive, notifies him the ride has started and soon he’ll receive another that the teenager has been dropped off. On the network’s app, Craft can track a live mapping of the drive.

“It’s almost overboard but you sit comfortable knowing where your kid is,” Craft said.

He repeats the same process for another foster teen, who attends school in a different district.

HopSkipDrive is a transportation network company designed to take students ages 6 and older to and from school, extracurricular activities and internships. The company works with 600 school districts, nonprofits and government agencies in 14 states plus Washington, D.C.

The company has helped schools grapple with a national shortage of bus drivers by tapping into a driver network of independent contractors.

The bus driver shortage is forcing districts to get creative in finding transportation solutions, including Chicago Public Schools, where officials have had early conversations with HopSkipDrive about the feasibility of bringing the service to Illinois and transporting Chicago students, said Kimberly Jones, executive director of student transportation services for CPS, in an interview with Illinois Answers in November. The state currently requires a school bus permit to transport students, even in passenger cars.

“We’re building the foundation right now” with HopSkipDrive and the state, she said. “We’re just beginning to have those conversations.”

Chicago Public Schools started the 2023-24 school year short of roughly 600 bus drivers, about half needed to transport all students. It has forced the district to prioritize students with disabilities and those experiencing homelessness, which totals to more than 11,700 students who either receive transportation or a monthly stipend, a district spokesperson told Illinois Answers. The district has not been able to provide about 5,500 general, magnet and selective enrollment students with transportation this academic year.

School districts across the country are “all fighting for the same driving population,” Jones said at an October Board of Education meeting about the competition to attract new bus drivers.

HopSkipDrive’s independent contractors, called Care Drivers, aren’t required to have an additional license. They drive their personal vehicles and instead undergo a certification process, background and vehicle checks and must have five years of caregiving experience.

While companies such as HopSkipDrive do not solve the need for licensed school bus drivers that many districts hope to hire, it has helped to provide supplemental support and relief for districts.