Bus routes combined due to lack of drivers

COLCHESTER — Trips to and from school are being made longer, and routes are being combined because of a shortage of school bus drivers throughout the state.

Jeffrey Burt, superintendent of Colchester Public Schools, said the issue is a national crisis. He has been on two phone calls with Connecticut leaders trying to solve the matter.

“We’re actually doing a little bit better,” he said, speaking for his district. “We’re actually in a little bit better shape. We are able to combine bus runs. But I know other districts are having difficulties even getting students to school.”

A longtime problem

Jon Hipsher, the chief operating officer of M&J Bus, which Colchester

contracts with, said his company serves 24 school districts and has more than 500 bus drivers on its payroll. The driver shortage issue is nothing new, he added.

“School bus companies and the association that we’re a part of [The Connecticut School Transportation Association], we’ve been alerting superintendents, district managers, our districts, of driver shortages for years.”

Burt said the shortage of drivers has been a problem for a couple of years, and is exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. “I know that we did have a couple drivers that didn’t necessarily want to get vaccinated or tested every week, so that may have played a factor in it,” he said.

With drivers having to choose between being vaccinated or weekly testing, Hipsher said, there will be a lot of drivers that opt to do the latter. He said others will are likely to leave the business — compounding the issue.

Delays ensue

The school system is combining bus runs pretty much every day, Burt said, and, while they try to keep those routes short, it does not always work out that way.

“Occasionally, they’re over an hour,” he said Friday. “We never want students on the bus that long, but that’s where we are right now. We had to combine two bus runs this morning.”

Burt said there are typically 22 routes operating each day for Colchester schools. “So, you can imagine, if we are combining two runs, that impacts four buses,” he said. “It can increase the length of those runs.”

Hipsher said he is usually three or four bus drivers short in Colchester every day, and he tries to assign extra drivers there as often as he can. He noted they have a few bus drivers in training there, which he calls encouraging.

While it has not been needed yet, Burt said this shortage could potentially impact extracurricular activities, such as sports. On days such as Fridays, when there are usually sporting events, it may become challenging to find a bus to bring students to the venue.

“Our primary responsibility is getting kids home from school, obviously,” he said, adding coaches and athletic directors have sometimes had to reschedule games for Saturdays or later in the day.

Hipsher said there are an average of two or three athletic trips a day. “Those are all at interfering times in the afternoon,” he said. “Really, you need about 25 drivers to run that terminal — maybe even 26. It becomes challenge when you factor in the (extracurricular) trips.”

Hipsher said it would be extreme to cancel extracurriculars because of a lack of drivers. And, at this time, he said, it is not necessary.

“It’s an important part of the education — the wellrounding of these kids,” he said, adding that athletic directors in many towns have worked hard to change venues and event times to make sport trips run smoothly.

In the meantime, Burt said, the district will work day by day.

He said administrators and bus companies have heard from parents that it impacts their schedules.

Seeking solutions

“We do sympathize, but we are as being creative as we possibly can, but there’s limited solutions to this problem,” he said. “Hopefully, the state will come up with solutions for us.”

Hipsher said licensing is one of the primary causes of the shortage, which goes back decades. He said a commercial driver’s license, which bus drivers need, includes a lot of training that they do not need, such as backing up to a loading dock.

Those are both federal and state requirements, Hipsher said. Connecticut also requires drivers to do a proficiency test every four years. That process is extremely rigorous and needs to be abolished or slimmed down, he added.

“Those two things right there that are the major barriers to entry for drivers in this business — by far,” he said. “The pandemic has made the already ongoing problem worse.”

Looking ahead

Hipsher said there are intense lobbying efforts and “wonderful” conversations taking place between state education officials, school leaders, and sports organizations to try and address the problem.

“We’re trying to leverage that attention from those major players to help us make some major changes in the industry going forward,” he said. “That’s going to take some time, and there’s no better time than right now to begin that process.”

Hipsher said his company is targeting stay-at-home parents who, as drivers, can bring their young children on the bus, as well as retirees, as potential recruits.

“It’s wonderful, highpaying work for part-time hours,” he said.