LoginWhen the School Bus Doesn’t Come: Driver Shortages Disrupting Student Attendance, Learning
A shortage of school bus drivers can create more than transportation delays. For some students, it can mean missing hours of instruction, losing access to school services or staying home entirely. In extreme circumstances, the shortage can force an entire school district to cancel classes.
That happened Sept. 18 in Trimble County, Kentucky, when the school district closed for the day after two bus drivers called out, leaving an already understaffed transportation department unable to cover its routes.
According to WDRB+WAVE News, the district had been consolidating routes because of staffing shortages. Superintendent Todd Neace said transportation officials had been doubling routes since the beginning of the school year. With only six or seven drivers available and hundreds of students depending on bus transportation, the additional absences made it impossible to maintain service.
The closure required students to make up the missed instructional day later in the school year.
While districtwide closures remain an extreme outcome, canceled routes, delayed pickups and transportation disruptions continue to affect school systems across the country.
Curt Macysyn, executive director of the National School Transportation Association (NSTA), told School Transportation News that understanding the driver shortage requires examining the conditions within individual school districts rather than treating it as a uniform national problem.
“All student transportation is local,” Macysyn said.
He explained that staffing challenges can vary depending on local pay rates, working conditions and the availability of backup drivers.
“Could we always use more drivers? Absolutely,” he said.
Macysyn said he does not hear many cases in which students’ attendance has been affected by transportation providers’ inability to get them to school. He credited the industry with juggling staffing and student transportation responsibilities under difficult conditions.
The situation in Trimble County illustrates what can happen when those efforts are no longer enough.
In North Carolina, Moore County Schools is contending with a different obstacle: Getting interested applicants through training and into service. Jason Nelson, the district’s director for transportation and driver’s education coordinator, told School Transportation News that the district had approximately 58 active drivers as of its August staffing update, at least 22 short of its goal of approximately 80.
Nelson said the vacancies increased the workload on existing drivers and transportation staff and made it difficult to cover all routes consistently.
When Transportation Problems Become Attendance Problems
For families who depend on school bus transportation, a canceled route can create an immediate problem. Parents may need to rearrange work schedules, arrange alternative transportation or keep their children home when no other option is available.
As reported by STN in July, Bullitt County Public Schools in Kentucky warned families that bus routes could be canceled if substitute drivers were unavailable.
The district told parents they would remain responsible for getting their children to school and that absences resulting from canceled routes would not be excused.
The warning raised an important question about how schools address attendance when students cannot access the transportation they normally depend on.
In Maine, Lewiston Public Schools experienced similar challenges earlier this year. According to an April report by WMTW News, the district canceled multiple bus routes on a day-to-day basis while struggling to fill nearly a dozen driver positions.
Superintendent Jake Langlais said via the article transportation officials were rotating drivers between routes to prevent students from repeatedly missing school. Transportation decisions often began before sunrise as administrators assessed which routes could operate that day.
Recent survey findings also suggest the effects of staffing shortages extend beyond transportation departments.
According to HopSkipDrive’s 2026 State of School Transportation Report, 71 percent of surveyed districts experienced at least one operational consequence of driver shortages during the previous year. Among respondents, 46 percent reported longer student ride times, while 39 percent experienced missed or late pickups.
The report also found that 75 percent of district respondents believed transportation access affected attendance, but only 25 percent actively tracked that relationship.
The connection between transportation and attendance is supported by academic research.
A 2024 study published in Education Finance and Policy examined student transportation policies in Michigan’s 50 largest school districts. Researcher Danielle Sanderson Edwards found that eligibility for school-provided transportation increased attendance and reduced chronic absenteeism.
The strongest effects occurred among economically disadvantaged students, who experienced attendance improvements of 0.5 to 1 percentage point and reductions of 2 to 4 percentage points in the probability of chronic absenteeism.
Those findings underscore the importance of reliable transportation for students who may have limited alternatives for getting to school.
Why Having Enough Drivers Is Not Always Enough
NSTA’s Macysyn said transportation operations cannot depend solely on having enough drivers to cover their regularly scheduled routes.
Districts and contractors also need additional personnel available when drivers become sick, take leave or experience other unexpected absences.
He offered an example of a transportation operation responsible for 50 routes.
“It’s really not just having 50 drivers,” Macysyn said.
Instead, operators need what he described as a bench of substitute drivers capable of filling vacancies without disrupting service.
That reserve becomes particularly important when several drivers are unavailable simultaneously.
Macysyn pointed to Minnesota’s paid family and medical leave requirements as an example of how staffing obligations can complicate transportation planning. He said NSTA had discussed whether school bus drivers could be designated essential employees and exempted from those requirements. He described the idea as a possible approach still under discussion.
Unlike businesses that may temporarily operate with fewer employees, school transportation providers must find a way to cover every required route.
The challenge becomes more complicated when districts must also coordinate transportation for students experiencing homelessness under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and students with disabilities whose individualized education programs require transportation services.
Macysyn said transportation providers regularly balance these responsibilities while attempting to maintain sufficient staffing.
For students and families, however, the consequences of an uncovered route can be immediate, particularly when there is no alternative means of reaching school.
Recruitment, Retention and Working Conditions
Although compensation remains an important factor in attracting drivers, Macysyn said retention depends on more than wages.
Districts paying less than neighboring operations may struggle to attract drivers, Macysyn said. A comfortable working environment can be almost as important as wages when pay is broadly in line with the local market, he added.
Moore County increased its starting pay to make school bus driving a more competitive employment opportunity and recognize the importance of the job, Nelson said. The district saw encouraging interest following the compensation improvements, but attracting applicants has not resolved its staffing needs. Applicants must complete training, testing, certification and onboarding before they can drive independently.
“While compensation is an important part of recruitment, our ability to move candidates through that process is equally important,” Nelson added.
Said Macysyn, “The working environment is also very high on that list,” noting factors that influence driver retention.
That administrative support can include routing systems, training and access to bus monitors in certain situations, he said.
School bus drivers must operate large commercial vehicles while maintaining awareness of traffic, student safety and behavior inside the bus. Those responsibilities can create stressful working conditions, particularly when drivers feel they are handling difficult situations without administrative assistance.
Macysyn said NSTA’s private contractor members have focused on retaining the drivers they already employ because recruiting new employees is difficult.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, some private transportation operators began using exit interviews more extensively to understand why employees were leaving, he added.That f Feedback helped operators identify workplace concerns and make adjustments intended to retain existing drivers.
The profession’s split-shift schedule can also present both advantages and challenges.
Macysyn noted that school bus driving can appeal to retirees who want to remain active and serve their communities. Some operations also allow parents to bring their children aboard, offering an opportunity to earn income without arranging child care.
However, the schedule is not suitable for everyone.
Macysyn estimated that roughly 20 percent to 30 percent of applicants ultimately work as bus drivers for a school year.
He said the demanding nature of the position sometimes becomes apparent only after applicants complete training, obtain their licenses and begin transporting students.
Nelson characterized Moore County’s challenge as both a shortage of applicants and difficulty converting applicants into qualified drivers. The district continues to recruit, but increasing the number of applicants will not solve the shortage by itself, he said. Interested candidates also need to be able to complete training and certification within a reasonable time.
In Moore County, some candidates have dropped out before reaching that point. Nelson said the district’s September 2026 recruitment update listed 29 applicants in its pipeline. Of those, 15 remained on track with onboarding, including nine who had signed up for a bus class. One fully qualified driver was scheduled to start Sept. 21.
Nelson cautioned that the 29 applicants represented the district’s recruitment pipeline at that time, not the total number of unique applicants over the preceding 12 months. The figures also reflected different stages of recruitment: Class registration did not confirm that candidates had begun or completed training, and the scheduled start date did not establish that the qualified driver had entered active service.
To provide an accurate annual applicant total, the district would need to review its historical application records, he said. It would also need to reconcile training and personnel records to determine how many candidates began training and how many ultimately became active drivers during the preceding 12 months.
“Since losing our dependable DMV trainer in May 2026, we have struggled to establish a consistent training schedule,” Nelson said. “On multiple occasions, classes have had to be rescheduled, extending the time candidates spend waiting to move forward. We have lost some candidates because the process has taken too long.”
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The district cannot provide a consistent timeline from application to route qualification, Nelson said. The time required depends on licensing steps, training availability, testing and other qualification requirements. Without a dependable trainer, postponed classes can extend the process well beyond candidates’ initial expectations and discourage applicants who need a clear path to employment.
“Candidates may have other employment opportunities, personal obligations and schedules to consider,” Nelson said.
A prolonged qualification process can make it difficult for applicants to wait for a position to become available, although the district has not formally quantified those factors among its candidates, he said. The district has directly observed that repeated class rescheduling and extended periods of waiting make it harder to maintain applicants’ interest, even when they are ready and willing to work.
A reliable training schedule would help the district retain those applicants and get qualified drivers into service sooner, Nelson concluded.
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