Imagine walking out of school at 4 p.m., hoping to get a ride to go home. But no bus is available and the only feasible options are to either walk for an hour-and-a-half or get on the bus with all the athletes hours after school.

This scenario is becoming a reality at Parkway Central. Recently, the 4 p.m.activity bus was canceled. The 5:30 p.m. bus is now the only option. Athletic and Activities Director Brian Guifoyle explains the change it brings to Parkway students.

“We try to accommodate as many students as possible,” Guifoyle said. “We only have one bus for athletics at 5:30, so we try to help those students who are at activities until 5:30 as well if there is room.”

The small of number of bus drivers makes every driver crucial to school. One bus driver leaving can cause rescheduling routes or cancellation of bus. Field trip and payroll coordinator Paula Adamsdempsey, who started working for Parkay as a bus driver, explains why activity bus has to be cancelled

“We had to cancel it [activity bus] because at all four high schools because we needed those drivers to drive an elementary route,” Adamsdempsey said. “because that gave us four extra drivers in the afternoon.”

The drivers’ contract, different from the teacher’s contract, doesn’t bind them to the school year. Drivers leaving could cause school to change bus policy in the middle of the school year.

“It [bus driver contract] has to do with usually their hire dates, they get to their hire date, and then they can retire.” Adamsdempsey said. “So not everybody’s hire date is exactly the same, meaning at the beginning of the school year, because they’re hired all through the year.”

The cancellation of activity buses reveals a bigger problem that impacts not only Parkway Central, but the whole country: bus driver shortages. Data from the Economic Policy Institute shows there are approximately 156,573 bus drivers working for public schools in September 2023, down from 181,224 drivers in 2019, a 14% decline in drivers nationwide. 

“When I started as a bus driver, which would be five years ago. We have a seniority list. And so I was 112 out of 116 drivers,” Adamsdempsey said. “We now have 85 drivers.”

Although the bus driver shortage has been going on since 2009, according to EPI data, schools experienced the sharpest decline during the pandemic. 

“It mainly started during all the COVID stuff when everything got shut down. Because you’re exposed to a lot of the stuff on the bus,” Adamsdempsey said. “Most of our drivers are retired from another company, so they’re older. A lot of them didn’t return.”

After the pandemic, schools had a hard time rehiring drivers to fill in the empty positions.

“Coming out of the pandemic, the workers had the advantage, because there were more jobs available than there were workers to fill those jobs,” said Marvin Byrd, assistant principal at Central. “So the employers, people who wanted those jobs filled, they had to offer more money. That’s kind of challenging for a school because we’re on a tight budget.”

Parkway’s starting pay for drivers is $17per hour. The pay increases with driver experience and work time, with a maximum pay of $26 per hour. This pay is competitive with other districts around St. Louis, but not high enough to entice more drivers.

“It’s not like we’re losing our drivers to a different school district,” Adamsdempsey said. “But  we easily could use another 10 drivers.”

Another cause for driver shortages could be the middle schoolers who lack discipline, according to bus driver Tracy Bell, who has worked at Parkway for 26 years.

“Kids are disrespectful, talkback and threaten the bus drivers and it makes a lot of drivers decide to quit, because they can’t deal with the disrespect like that,” Bell said. “Dealing with children that make you feel like it’s not worth even coming in to work at times. You feel like you’re not appreciated.”

As a result of the driver shortage, students have to ride the bus for a longer time, meaning getting up earlier and getting home later.

“The buses start earlier in the morning to pick the students up. The routes are longer because we have less drivers,” Adamsdempsey said. “So we have to make the route itself longer to cover a bigger area to pick up more students on the bus.”

The cancellation of the activity bus makes some students unable to participate in activities or tutoring after school, which causes a loss of student opportunities.

“I think it [driver shortages] is concerning, because we want all kids to get involved. There’s value in those clubs. Not everyone has the ability to drive to school,” Byrd said. “So that opportunity is not available for students who need it, especially our freshmen. They need those opportunities.”

Besides after school activity, Parkway also have to be flexible with transporting athletics activities.

“Parkway is doing a great job navigating this issue. We have been able to work around bus shortages for the most part. Some of our athletic teams have to share buses to events, or we shuttle them to make it easier,” Guilfoyle said. “We also use outside companies for longer trips and Missouri Central Bussing for our Voluntary Transfer Students.”

Going into the future, staff at Parkway Central are not optimistic about hiring drivers. The driver shortage is likely to last.

“It’s been a couple of years so far,” Adamsdempsey said. “And it doesn’t seem like it’s getting better.”

Although the pay for bus drivers right now is competitive in the district, Adamsdempsey proposed a pay raise is possible in order to hirer more drivers.

“I think it’s [increase pay for drivers] a possibility.” Adamsdempsey said. “But we’re bound by the school year. It has to go through board docs and all that stuff, so we have to wait till the next fiscal year. There wouldn’t be an increase until in July when that new fiscal year starts.”

Parkway’s current strategy for solving the driver shortage is advertising, with a bus in South Middle school displaying a huge advertisement.

“[Parkway is doing] as much advertising as I can,” Adamsdempsey said. “I know that they’ve directed to a specific area of town to try to get different people to apply.”

One of the advertising strategies is putting an emphasis on the value of the job. Parkway wants to show bus drivers are not only transporting students, but they are also a part of the education process.

“Definitely what Parkway has done is they’ve put a spotlight on the drivers,” Byrd said. “You’re not just driving the kids to school, you’re making an investment in the future. I think Parkway does a good job of reframing that job as something greater than people may see it outside looking in.”

This story was originally published on Corral on January 19, 2024.