Staff shortages mean the buses run late — or not at all — in one N.S. school district

Parents in a northern Nova Scotia school district say late and missing school buses are throwing their morning routines into disarray and causing their children to miss school. 

Carmen Mingo, whose three children attend two schools in the Chignecto-Central district, said in an interview Wednesday his kids have missed about four days of school just over a month into the year.

When the bus doesn't show up on time, he said he has to dip into his pockets to get taxis for his kids.

"It gets very expensive. I'm not that close to the school, so it's about 20 bucks there and back," he said. "You do that math, that's 120 bucks, because it's two different schools and they go at different times."

The other options include a "long trek" by foot or staying home.

He said buses not showing up is a recent problem as buses were "rarely" cancelled last year. If one driver wasn't able to pick up or drop off students, another driver or bus would arrive instead.

Sometimes parents are notified of school bus delays and cancellations the day before, Mingo said. Other times, he receives a text around 6 a.m. stating the bus won't be running that morning.

"And they don't really have much of a reason," Mingo added.

Officials in charge of busing say they're dealing with an ongoing driver shortage.

Chris Zwicker, the district's director of operations, said the driver shortage is likely "the biggest challenge" that he's facing this year.

While all the full-time driver positions are filled, the district has had trouble building up a roster of backfill drivers who can be called on in case of an absence, Zwicker said in an interview Wednesday.

"It causes a big issue for our families," he said, adding that drivers sometimes need to pick up students on their regular route, then double back for a second trip to get the stranded students.

"In some cases when we're short a substantial number of drivers, it does impact the families that we can't get out to every site [on] every route and pick the kids up," Zwicker said. "It's a real frustration."

Zwicker said the shortage is linked, in part, to a shrinking workforce that isn't being replenished quickly enough to deal with demand.

"We've got a lot of retirees that make up our bus driving fleet," he said. "Typically, they retire and, quite often, it's after they've done a substantial number of years … so it's been just a shortage of more folks coming in to replace those retirements."

Short-term fixes

Zwicker said they've looked at consolidating two runs where there's room, which frees up a driver.

They've also brought in staff from other divisions within the district who are licensed to drive buses, as well as recent retirees and others with licences to drive school buses who may have moved on to different careers.

It hasn't been enough, he said.

"It's helped with some short-term issues, but obviously it's going to be a challenge to have folks change their jobs."

For the long term, he said the district has launched a recruiting effort to find new drivers who are looking for casual work, which will include the necessary training and comes with the same pay rate for full-time drivers.