Officials with Northern Lights School Division (NLSD) say they are quite familiar with the province-wide school bus driver shortage, as they are struggling to consistently find drivers themselves.
“It has been an ongoing issue for quite a few years,” said Nicole Garner, Communications officer with NLSD. “We have people retiring and no new people coming in, along with people leaving to go drive buses to the oil field.”
Garner says the issues are division-wide, with NLSD officials struggling to find drivers and substitute drivers for its schools in Bonnyville, Cold Lake, Lac La Biche and everywhere in between.
In an effort to bring the issue to the forefront, the Student Transportation Association of Alberta recently compiled information from 57 school districts in the province.
As first reported in the Edmonton Journal, the study revealed data that pointed to a troubling trend – schools all across the province are struggling to get their kids consistently to and from school.
“We used to, at one point, have all of our routes filled and we would have substitute drivers,” said Garner. “Now we hardly have any substitutes.”
Over a four-month period, from September through December, students were in school for a total of 72 days.
During this time NLSD had two days where bus routes were combined, 16 days in which office staff had to fill in and drive a bus, and 14 days where a bus route was cancelled.
“There was either no driver or no bus,” said Garner, referring to the 14 times they had to cancel a bus route.
“The labour shortage is not just with drivers. When a bus breaks down, sometimes it is hard to find someone to fix the issue right away. So then we have a bus down and can't drive the route.”
Provincial numbers, as reported in the Journal, saw 302 morning routes cancelled, 296 afternoon routes cancelled, 1,239 morning routes combined, 1,045 afternoon routes combined and 3,399 occasions where another staff member had to fill in and drive a bus.
Along with causing issues for student's transportation to and from school, the lack of drivers has made it difficult for school board officials to improve their lengthy bus routes.
NLSD attempted to overhaul their bus routes this past summer, spending time looking into adding additional routes in an attempt to cut down on students ride times.
With the construction of the new J.A. Williams High School in La La Biche completed this past summer, NLSD officials wanted to re-do the school bus routes in the town and create another route.
“Our plans was to start an in-town busing route similar to what we have in Cold Lake and Bonnyville” said Garner. “That never got off the ground as we couldn't find a driver. We did all kinds of advertising for that route and got zero interest.”
The Student Transportation Association of Alberta collected information from 57 school districts, with 41 of those districts reporting bus driver shortages. One of those 16 school districts not struggling to find drivers is the Lakeland Catholic School Division (LCSD).
“In the past there have been some issues for sure, but not recently,” said Sylvia Slowski, Transportation Director with LCSD.
“I know for sure when a bus doesn't run and we haven't had an instance this year where a bus did not run because of not enough drivers.”
Slowski said there were several occasions where LCSD bus routes were doubled-up as a way to fill in for a sick or absent driver, but a cancellation has yet to happen.
As for NLSD, the transportation issues has become one of the Board's top priorities with the Board Chair Arlene Hrynyk and Superintendent Rick Cusson bringing it to the attention of Education Minister Gordon Dirks.
The two NLSD officials were part of a group of education representatives who met with the minister to present several key challenges they were facing. One of those challenges NLSD talked about were the struggles they are facing in regards to transportation.
“In the first quarter of the school year, September to the end of November, we had a $68,000 deficit in transportation,” said Garner.
“We expect it to continue throughout the school year.”
