Minnesota is facing a “devastating school bus crisis,” school officials said, while Ryan Dellinger, executive director of the Pennsylvania School Bus Association, estimates there are about 1,000 unfilled bus driver jobs across the state.Īn estimated 200 school bus drivers have died during the pandemic, including dozens since the reopenings started in August. Even the few districts that said they were not short of regular drivers said they did not have enough drivers to address COVID-19 quarantines and the wave of retirements. Last week, the National Association for Pupil Transportation released the results of a national survey, which found that over half of the school transportation officials who responded were experiencing “severe” or “desperate” bus driver shortages, and nearly two-thirds stated that the driver shortage is currently their number one challenge. So far, officials in the Democratic Party-run city have not taken up Baker’s offer for military assistance. The driver shortage and last-minute routing changes have resulted in many delays since the district opened last Sunday. A bus monitor will be aboard each vehicle.īaker told reporters that if more qualified drivers could not be found, “we’ll try to serve as many communities as we can.” He said the state would be reimbursed by the federal government and added, “Obviously the goal here is to try to make sure if we have vehicles, we put people on them who are qualified to drive them and do what we can to make sure kids can get to school.”īoston Public Schools uses the private operator Transdev to transport 25,000 students each day, about half the district’s students. Military transport vans known as 7D vehicles, which have a maximum of 11 seats including the driver, will be used to drive a token number of special needs students back and forth from school. The action by the Republican governor takes place as the Biden administration and politicians from both parties risk the lives of millions of students and school employees by opening schools across the US amid the surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths.īaker said 90 soldiers would begin training Tuesday to transport students in the Chelsea, Lawrence, Lowell and Lynn school systems. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has deployed 250 National Guard troops to transport students in the state as school districts across the country scramble to deal with a nationwide shortage of school bus drivers brought on by the pandemic.
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