Stable, serious or critical condition:

In the February 21 edition of the Tribune Phonograph, I read with great interest the article entitled “Who’s driving the bus?” which described the shortage of school bus drivers across the United States. This article was timely because the shortage of school bus drivers exists virtually everywhere, including locally. While the article offered a statistical analysis of why the school bus driver shortage has occurred, it did not offer any insights as to how this shortage will adversely affect school districts today and going forward. To that end, I wish to respond to the article.

If an individual is injured in a car accident, the person’s condition is often described as stable, serious or critical. The same scenario can be applied to school bus companies in terms of the driver shortage. The smaller school districts in central Wisconsin have not yet experienced the same level of driver shortage that larger school districts have experienced. That is to say, the smaller districts were in stable condition while the larger districts were already in serious condition. Unfortunately, the pandemic has changed the condition of the driver shortage for smaller school districts and the bus companies that serve them. Our status has changed from stable condition to serious condition. There are many reasons for this, too numerous to go into for the purposes of this article. And to be honest, it doesn’t really matter how we got here, it just matters that we are here. Stewing about all the things that led to this doesn’t resolve the situation. If we spend all our time looking in the rearview mirrors, we won’t see what’s ahead of us. With that said, let’s talk about what’s ahead of us.

The lack of school bus drivers will ultimately force school bus companies in smaller districts to change how they do business. This has already happened in larger districts in Wisconsin. For some larger school districts, the school day is now based on when the school bus companies can get kids to school. Drivers are doing “double runs” because there aren’t enough drivers available at one time. For those larger districts, the start of the school day is based on when the school bus company can get kids to school. The tail is wagging the dog: the school is no longer in charge of the school day, the bus company is. If the status of the school bus companies serving smaller school districts in central Wisconsin goes from serious to critical condition, then the smaller school districts will be forced to change how they operate, just as the larger school districts have. One of the considerations will be to incorporate double runs, just as larger districts are already doing. There are two other considerations. The first consideration is that bus routes can be combined, which will reduce the number of buses operated on rural bus routes and therefore reduce the number of drivers needed. The ride times for students on rural bus routes will dramatically increase from a maximum of a one-hour ride to rides that edge closer to 1.5 to 2 hours. (Large, very rural districts already have ride times of this length.) The second scenario is even more damaging: students within two miles of school will NOT be offered school bus transportation. The state law in Wisconsin reads that no students within two miles of school must be transported. Most school districts in the state of Wisconsin choose to offer transportation to those students who live within two miles of school. This has already started to change in districts throughout Wisconsin. Should smaller school bus companies here in central Wisconsin reach critical condition, this will be an option that smaller school districts will be forced to consider. Athletic trips will be the next victim of the school bus driver shortage. The first athletic teams to be sacrificed will be middle school athletics. One of two things will happen. Either parents will take the athletes to their games because no school bus drivers are available or the trips will leave after the school bus routes in the afternoon can be completed. Then a driver who has completed their school bus route can take the middle school team to their game. If this scenario occurs, middle school athletes will be returning home from games at the same time as their high school counterparts: sometimes after 10 p.m.

Ultimately, if critical condition is reached and nothing else has worked, high school athletics will be affected. Smaller central Wisconsin schools and their athletic directors will be forced to have varsity male and female athletic teams travel together. Junior varsity teams will only play locally against other local teams and only at times when buses are available, most likely after the p.m. school bus routes are completed. At some point the WIAA would likely have to reconsider how conferences are aligned, meaning small towns close to one another are in the same conference thus preventing long road trips for small schools.

The above scenarios represent a great deal of doom and gloom. All of this is avoided by school bus companies getting more school bus drivers. Like everything else, money is the answer. At some point, so much money will be thrown at this that people who would never consider driving a school bus will finally consider it. I know I could hire all the drivers needed if I could offer full health insurance for drivers who work approximately three hours per day (15 hours per week). Is that something I am considering? No, it is not. Why not? Because the school districts we serve need their money for teachers, computers, better facilities and a host of other things. The school bus company is NOT the priority (back to the tail wagging the dog).

At some point people who care about their kids, care about their grandkids or care about the neighborhood kids are going to have to step up. That means that when you drive your SUV to see your kid play a sport in a town 30 minutes away, you could drive the whole team in a school bus and get paid to watch your kid play. Better yet, commit to driving a school bus route. The two things that most people worry about when thinking of driving a school bus route are handling the bus and handling the kids. Handling the bus isn’t as difficult as you think. We have successfully trained hundreds of people over the last 70 years who have never driven anything bigger than their car. And handling the kids has never been easier: load factors are lower since the pandemic and most kids have their phones to play games or listen to music through their earbuds. The kids who don’t behave have their riding privileges revoked. We simply won’t tolerate their poor behavior.

As I look ahead to the madness of our spring sports schedule, I already know that we will be saying “NO” to requests for last minute athletic trips that must be rescheduled due to weather cancellations. It saddens me to think we are going to deny kids the ability to compete in their sport because we can’t get them there due to lack of drivers. It turns out that we may be closer than we think to the doom and gloom scenarios listed above.

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