Bus drivers needed as Covid drives bus drivers away

Some Virginia Beach City Public School students are facing tremendous wait times and multiple bus runs due to a bus driver shortage. The schools have had a difficult time hiring bus drivers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some school districts are increasing incentives to try and entice more people to become bus drivers. According to 6 News Richmond “Chesterfield County Schools will boost starting school bus driver pay from $17.21 to $20.21 an hour and increase the signing bonus from $1000 to $3000 in an effort to improve the county’s school bus driver shortage.”  Virginia Beach has not yet made any such changes.

Junior Marqual Howell has been late to school twice because of a late bus.

“I’ve had some friends whose buses were extremely late or never showed up,” said junior Marlee Riddle.

Riddle added that her bus is “ packed and hot.”

“With the shortage of drivers, some routes were consolidated and that puts more students on a bus. I think that is the main way students are affected,” said special education assistant John Byzewski.

We are not alone in Virginia Beach. A report released by The National Association for Pupil Transportation found that fifty-one percent of [nearly 1,500] respondents described their driver shortage as “severe” or “desperate.”

“The shortage is not a bus shortage, but a bus driver shortage, the division is 80 drivers short,” said Byzewski. 

During school closures many bus drivers found new jobs and have not returned to driving now that schools have reopened. 

For more information regarding the nationwide bus driver shortage see NAPT, NASDPTS and NSTA Release Findings of School Bus Driver Shortage Survey.