Lack of bus drivers has Basin districts looking for solutions

MOSES LAKE — A lack of qualified drivers forced a short-term cancellation of bus routes in one local school district; other local districts have been forced to come up with what some school officials called creative solutions to meet student transportation needs. 

The Moses Lake School District canceled bus routes a couple of days last week due to a lack of qualified bus drivers. Claren McLaughlin, MLSD marketing and public relations specialist said canceling routes, at least for now, was a short-term phenomenon.  

“We have not closed any more routes since (Oct. 1), when two routes were canceled,” McLaughlin wrote in response to an email from the Columbia Basin Herald. “We have filled the four open route positions but would like to have eight additional substitute drivers to prevent further possibilities of canceled routes.” 

While other local districts haven’t canceled routes, getting students to and from school and students to out-of-district events has been a challenge, according to school officials from around the Columbia Basin.  

Wahluke School District Superintendent Andy Harlow said the district has enough drivers to get children to and from school. Wahluke has been advertising to fill two bus driving jobs for a couple of years though.  

“We haven’t had to cancel a route in a while, but it still does occasionally happen, especially around holidays, where we have some our drivers that go to Mexico, or if someone gets sick, or we’ve had people out for surgery. It does get a little tight, and those two openings just make it really tight. So we have to do double runs,” Harlow said. 

On a double run, the bus picks up students whose classes start earlier, drops them off at school, and returns for the remaining students. The challenge, Harlow said, is that some students either get to school much earlier than the start of classes or leave school long after classes are dismissed.  

Wahluke also faces the challenge of people who are qualified to drive a bus having other employment opportunities, Harlow said.  

Quincy Superintendent Nik Bergman said Quincy has enough bus drivers for the school run, but it gets complicated when students need to go to a game or an event.  

“We are looking for creative solutions,” Bergman said. 

The district contracted with the East Valley School District in Yakima to get Quincy students to a recent volleyball game. A bus from East Valley picked up the Quincy students and transported them to Yakima. The Quincy bus picked them up for the trip home. Bergman said it cost Quincy about the same as the Quincy bus making the trip both ways. And it’s a reciprocal arrangement. 

“If they were in a similar situation, we’d do the same for them,” he said.  

Harlow said Wahluke has worked out a similar deal with the Othello School District, where an Othello bus takes a team to the game and a Wahluke bus brings them home.  

For trips within 60 miles, Quincy teams sometimes are bused to the venue, then the bus returns for a school run then returns for the team, Bergman said.  

Sarah Morford, communications director for the Ephrata School District, said Ephrata had used some of the same techniques. 

“If we have an event after school and we’re light on bus drivers for the day, we may have a bus take kids to an event, then come back to complete a bus route and go back and get the kids after the event,” she said. “Or, in the event that we don’t have folks that are able to drive a bus, sometimes we’d have coaches and other district staff take kids in motor pool vehicles instead of busing them.” 

Ephrata had two open positions at the start of the school year but filled them within a month, she said.  

Harlow said a bus driver works about 20 to 25 hours per week for regular school day routes. Trips to take students out of town for sports or extracurriculars add to that. Wahluke officials have started looking at ways to increase hours for bus drivers. 

“We’ve looked at other opportunities where they can serve as a (paraprofessional). So can we get them to do some para work? Can they do custodial work? Can they do maintenance work?” he said. “And then we flipped it the other way. We reached out to our maintenance, custodians and food service, and said, ‘How many of you would like to be drivers?’”  

Bergman said that while Quincy has enough drivers, more would be welcome. 

“We can always use more drivers,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing. We desperately need subs. You could use a sub every day.” 

Harlow said Wahluke officials don’t see any relief looking forward.  

“I think we’re going to have drivers retiring and that is going to take an already difficult problem and add, I think, a whole new level,” he said.