Philly’s bus driver shortage is a ‘crisis,’ leaving kids missing school or stranded

Philadelphia Inquirer via MSN ^ | 09/13/2021 | Kristen A. Graham,

[Kid Shelleen]

Most days, the yellow bus that’s supposed to take Denise Madre’s kids from their Germantown home to school in Roxborough doesn’t show up at all. A bus did come on one of the six days school has been open so far — nearly four hours late. ---SNIP---But the transportation reality has been much worse than anyone had braced for, affecting schools across the city, leaving some students stranded and others on buses for hours or dropped off in the wrong neighborhoods. After a year-plus of pandemic-disrupted learning, persistent bus woes have kept some students out of school completely and left parents and school staff scrambling yet again.

[rockabyebaby]

Wow. Amazing. WTH is going on? We’ve got schoolbus driver problems in Florida too. Reading this thread, it seems to be happening across the country. Why?

Bus driving companies had all summer to figure out how many drivers they have and waited til the last minute to see how many they actually had, now there's a shortage. Can you imagine being a little kid and having a member of the National Guard sitting in the driver's seat? Not sure if they'll be in actual Guard uniform or not, but if they are, that could have different reactions from kids. One of the towns here in MA waited til the day before school started to do asbestos testing on the school and school was delayed a day because of it. SMH.