Wake will now provide all school bus riders with service. But there’s a big catch.
Wake County’s solution for providing bus service to every rider will come at the cost of more than 3,000 students arriving late to school.
Two weeks ago, Wake County school board members said the district’s plan to provide every other week bus service to some students due to a driver shortage was unacceptable.
In response, school administrators said Tuesday’ they’re revising bus routes to make sure that all riders are assigned to a driver. But doing this means extending bus routes, resulting in 3,157 students now being scheduled to arrive after classes have begun.
Seeing how many students could arrive late under the plan was a worry for school board members.
“Looking at this now, I feel very nervous for a lot of our students and how this is going to really impact academic outcomes,” said school board member Tara Waters.
Bob Snidemiller, Wake’s senior director of transportation, said bus routes and assignments will be posted online Friday.
Planned late arrivals at school
Wake’s goal is to have bus riders arrive at least 10 minutes early to school. But now Wake will revise its “on time” arrival practice for some bus riders.
Under the new plan:
▪ 7,885 riders will arrive less than 10 minutes before school starts.
▪ 1,446 riders will arrive one to 10 minutes after school starts.
▪ 1,008 riders will arrive 11 to 20 minutes after school starts.
▪ 481 riders will arrive 21 to 30 minutes after school starts.
▪ 222 riders will arrive more than 30 minutes after school starts.
It’s expected that Wake will let these late-arriving students have breakfast in their classroom.
How long will the delays last?
Snidemiller said they will continue to revise the routes before traditional-calendar schools start Aug. 28.
“We are diligently working on all of those students to see if we can pull them back to a better arrival time,” Snidemiller told the board.
Snidemiller said they’ll also make changes in mid-September when a group of new bus drivers complete training. But he said it will take 20 to 30 new bus drivers before they can revise the routes to get all 3,157 riders on time daily.
“We need bodies to assign to buses so we can put more buses on the road,” Snidemiller said.
Snidemiller said the schools who will be affected by the late arrivals will be notified this week.
School board member Cheryl Caulfield suggested those schools temporarily revise their schedules until the routes change. If not, she said “it will make the academic loss issue even worse” for the students who arrive late.
A/B bus schedule rejected
The new plan was developed after the school board asked administrators to go back to the drawing board.
Two weeks ago, Snidemiller said they’re missing permanent bus drivers for 17 routes, covering 2,000 students. The plan was to offer daily bus service to elementary students on those 17 routes while providing every other week bus service to secondary students on those routes.
Under the rejected A/B schedule, middle and high school students would have received bus service one week and then have to provide their own transportation the following week.
Change bus driver requirements?
The county uses a three-tier bus system where the same bus covers elementary, middle and high schools to stagger start times to minimize how many buses are needed. But Wake is still seeing driver vacancy rates of more than 30%.
In the past two weeks, Wake has redoubled its recruitment efforts amid a national bus driver shortage.
▪ Wake has 31 bus driver candidates who’ve cleared a DMV check and are awaiting a criminal background check.
▪ Wake has 43 bus driver candidates who’ve cleared the DMV and criminal background checks and will start an Aug. 21 training class to get a commercial driver’s license.
▪ Wake has 16 bus driver candidates who’ve cleared the background checks and finished the CDL class.
Several school board members asked staff to revisit the policy that new bus drivers must have a clean driving record for a year before they can be hired. It’s not required by state law.
“I wouldn’t want these minor infractions to kick them out,” said board member Lynn Edmonds.
What to do when the bus driver is out
Traditional-calendar schools will start in less than two weeks, meaning the bulk of Wake’s 90,000 assigned bus riders will need service.
Wake will again face the situation that has been the case in recent years when some bus routes will be uncovered due to a driver being out. Notifications will be posted on wcpss.net/busupdates.
If 10% of Wake’s 560 drivers are out, that means 6,000 riders will have late or no bus service. Snidemiller said a 10% absentee rate is normal later in the school year, such as during flu season.
When a route is uncovered, Wake will try to assign another driver to pick up the elementary students on that route. The middle and high school students would be expected to provide their own transportation that day.
This story was originally published August 15, 2023 at 10:45 AM with the headline "Wake will now provide all school bus riders with service. But there’s a big catch.."
