Runningshort.
How school districts are managing the bus driver shortage, and what is actually working.
Six things every district leader should know before the next board meeting
It is structural, not a pandemic hangover.
There were 9.5% fewer school bus drivers in August 2025 than in August 2019, and the decline started a decade earlier.12
The job, not the applicant pool, is the problem.
A split shift that caps drivers at about 32 hours a week leaves them earning 43% less per week than the median worker.2
Nobody fixed it with one lever.
The districts back at full staffing deployed multiple tactics at once like above-market pay, guaranteed hours, paid training, a substitute bench and a bell-time or route redesign.
Drivers quit over student behavior on the bus as often as money.
Louisville lost a quarter of its drivers for a day in 2023, and the drivers said it was not about pay.3 Drivers who quit name the same things: student behavior with no backup when they write a referral, a split shift with a three to five hour hole in the middle of the day, no retirement or benefits in many districts, and being told to "just drive" when they report a problem.
Routing is the lever you fully control.
It changes how many drivers you need. Everything else changes how many you can find.
Watch November 28, 2026.
The federal exemption that lets school bus applicants skip the engine-compartment CDL test expires that day unless FMCSA renews it.4
How short are we, really?
Short enough that it rarely makes the news when a superintendent gets a CDL.
The honest answer depends on which federal series you read, because they count different things. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 396,800 school bus driver jobs on employer payrolls and projects 1% growth in the next decade.5 The Current Population Survey, a household survey analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, counts people who call themselves school bus drivers, and it puts the August 2025 figure at 202,076, down 9.5% from August 2019.1 Both agree on the direction.
Two things in the chart matter. The damage is concentrated in the contractor workforce, down 28.8%, and districts are quietly insourcing: over the year ending August 2025, public-sector driver jobs rose by about 9,900 while private-sector jobs fell by 8,200.1 If your contractor keeps missing routes, this is why. 95% of contractors report a shortage.6
The pandemic cut the contractor workforce nearly in half in two months, from 207,100 jobs in February 2020 to 112,500 in April 2020. It took until November 2024 to climb back, and by July 2026 it had slipped again, to about 5% below the prior July.7 The decline also predates COVID: EPI counts about 63,000 fewer drivers in fall 2019 than in fall 2009, a 22% drop over a decade when nobody was talking about a shortage.2
The federal School Pulse Panel is the most rigorous read on how it feels inside schools. In August 2024, transportation had the lowest fill rate of any non-teaching position, and 90% of schools called it "very difficult" to fill.8 The intensity has moderated since the worst of it: in a 2021 national survey of nearly 1,500 transportation leaders, 51% called their shortage "severe" or "desperate."9 By fall 2025, nobody picked "desperate."10
Mild is still a problem, but it is fixable. The same survey found 31% of districts changed school start times because of driver shortages in 2025, up from 17% the year before.10 The workforce is aging out: the average driver is 55.4 and roughly 58% are 56 or older.1112 At a BusRight customer advisory session in September 2026, one New York director said he expects 80% of his staff to retire within two to four years.
And the stakes are students, not schedules. Peer-reviewed studies find bus riders two to three percentage points less likely to be chronically absent, and that losing transportation eligibility raises chronic absence by about four points for economically disadvantaged students.1314
Next chapter02 Why the garage is empty
of districts changed school start times in 2025 because they could not staff the routes. The year before it was 17%.
Why the garage is empty
Ask transportation leaders and they will tell you. Every survey since 2021 has found the same four causes at the top.
Pay. The median school bus driver earned $20.11 an hour in 2023, 20% less than the $25.21 median for all workers. The weekly gap is worse, because the job is two blocks of work separated by a three to five hour hole in the middle of the day. Public school drivers average about 32 hours a week, so they take home $565 against $990 for the median worker, 43% less.2
The split shift. "Today, people are looking for a solid amount of time. That middle break does not work for most people," NAPT CEO Molly McGee-Hewitt told NPR.15 Cypress-Fairbanks ISD's transportation director Kayne Smith put it in one line: "The new generation of workforce wants a career, not a part-time job."16
The momentum is fading as federal ESSER money runs out. School Bus Fleet found district driver pay rose only 1% from 2024 to 2025, after years of 5 to 10% gains.10
The competition
Amazon, transit agencies, theme parks and motor coach companies want the same license and offer full-time hours. "Amazon pays more than most school districts do," McGee-Hewitt said.17
The licensing pipeline
Federal Entry-Level Driver Training rules add registry-listed training before the skills test.18 Pennsylvania's association puts the process at about 12 weeks; Moore County, North Carolina's director says 4.5 months. "I've had some walk away before they ever went through class."1619 Baldwin-Whitehall, Pennsylvania hired 30 to 40 trainees in 2023; about six finished.20
Student behavior on the bus, and the math
Student behavior was the top safety concern of 45% of districts in 2025.10 An Idaho district cancelled a route in October 2026 after drivers refused to drive it.21 And with an average age over 55 and roughly 61,000 openings a year, districts must recruit and license about 15% of the workforce every year just to stand still.5
Drivers who left and drivers who stayed describe the same four problems
What varies by district is the order. The order tells you what to fix first.
It's no wonder we have people dropping like flies and don't have a line out the door. I need a retirement. You'd think that, working for a school, that would be automatic.Amanda Conant, eight-year driver, to the MSAD 75 board in Maine, September 10, 202622
You can write 20 referrals a day, but they aren't going to do anything about it.Betty Self, retired after 19 years driving for Jefferson County Public Schools, Louisville23
This is why we have a national bus driver shortage. … This is why I still drive.Karen Provinzano, 15-year driver, Brick Township, New Jersey, after listing the thrown water bottles and then the cards, flowers and invitations from students24
Money and a retirement
MSAD 75 pays new drivers about $27 an hour and tops out near $30. Neighboring Brunswick pays $31, and the First Student contract drivers covering MSAD 75's open routes told a veteran driver they make about $36, while the district pays First Student $996 a day for each of them.22 In Sharonville, Ohio, First Student drivers set a strike date for October 1, 2026; their union says most of them qualify for Medicaid.25 The one peer-reviewed study of why school bus drivers stay, a 2025 survey of 301 drivers in 32 New York districts, found pay, benefits and meaningful work were what kept people.26
Student behavior on the bus, and backup
On November 6, 2023, more than 140 JCPS drivers, about a quarter of the staff, called out sick and roughly 100 routes were cancelled. It was not about pay. Board member Linda Duncan relayed what drivers had told her: "they said it's not the hours and it's not the money. It's the behavior of the students."3 JCPS had issued about 15,000 bus referrals the prior year; its driver count had fallen from more than 1,000 in 2015 to 578.23 Paula Del Rio, who drove for Douglas County, Colorado for nearly 20 years: "Things are thrown at us and we're told to just drive. I've been told more than once to just drive and not look in my mirror."27 The Kentucky House responded with a 93 to 1 vote for a bill requiring bus conduct policies and letting a driver who feels unsafe decline to transport a student.28
The shape of the day
Provinzano's version: up at 4:30 a.m. to be in the yard by 5:30, 50 or so kids, water bottles thrown at her head, and if she is lucky a shift from 5:30 to 9:30 and then 1:00 to 4:30.24 Del Rio described 50- to 60-hour weeks covering open routes before she quit: "It was killing me."27
Why they stay
A schedule that matches their own kids' school day, the relationship with students, a pension where one exists, and being treated as part of the school. Vail School District in Arizona is fully staffed with 90-plus applicants waiting, and director Jerry Brown frames the job as retention: "What good is having a big front door, if the back door is even bigger?"29
Ask your drivers to rank pay, hours, benefits and backup on student behavior. If student behavior comes first, no raise will fix your turnover. Louisville learned that with 143 call-outs.
What transportation directors are doing
BusRight hosted In The Rearview, a live peer panel, on September 23, 2026. The driver shortage came up in the first 15 minutes. Watch the replay.
As a director you're doing a lot of lobbying for your department. So we immediately started looking at salary studies, looking at what other districts were doing, looking at our recruitment strategies. … If you've increased the pay, you also then have to in turn look at your existing employees because you wanna keep them happy as well. So you have to look at your retention plan.Peggie OvertonAgua Fria Union High School District, ArizonaIn The Rearview panel, Sept. 23, 202630
We're operating with a very limited office staff. We're two people down in my office. Driver shortage is real, yeah, but office staff shortage is also real for me right now.Dawnett WrightDirector of Transportation, Peninsula School District, WashingtonIn The Rearview panel, Sept. 23, 202630
There was this sense of value that I think the drivers themselves didn't feel. And so with this efficiency, not only am I saving the district money, I think that we've built a better culture because everyone is valued and needed in the system that we have.Ben BennettDirector of Transportation, Emmett Independent School District, IdahoIn The Rearview panel, Sept. 23, 202630
drivers called out sick in Louisville on one day in November 2023. About 100 routes were cancelled. "It's not the hours and it's not the money. It's the behavior of the students."
Board minutes from 2023 to 2026 show the same four tradeoffs in every region
Open each one. Every example is a real vote, with a date.
Moore County, North Carolina raised starting pay from $16.70 to $20.00 in August 2026 with about $300,000 of state transportation money. "We had to go a little above the market," transportation director Jason Nelson said. Applications jumped from 6 to 29, but by late September the district had 62 drivers against a goal of 80, and new hires were waiting months for licenses.3119
Citrus County, Florida paid for a $3 raise by deleting 21 vacant transportation positions.32 Douglas County, Colorado, down 104 drivers, put a $66 million mill levy override on the ballot.27
Independence, Ohio dropped high schoolers from routes after a year of doubling up.33 Hempfield Area, Pennsylvania moved middle school start an hour earlier after kids were getting home at 5 p.m.34 Durham, North Carolina ran buses four days a week for three weeks in December 2024 and asked families to drive the fifth.35
Cook County, Minnesota's superintendent: "We've increased pay and created flexible scheduling options, but no dice."36
Fort Bend ISD, which opened every year with 30 to 40 routes lacking a permanent driver, proposed a $31.65 million GoldStar contract. Trustee Sonya Jones: "We have buses, all we need is just drivers."37
Contractors are shorter than districts, and outsourcing is not coverage: Boston fined Transdev $405,000 for late and missing buses in spring 2026 under a $651 million contract and opened 2026-27 with 61% of morning buses on time.38
Special education, students in temporary housing and, in states like Ohio, charter and private school students. Chicago kept service only for the first two groups and still had 1,099 students with disabilities waiting for a route five weeks into 2024-25.39
Ohio districts declared about 22,000 students, nearly all charter and nonpublic, "impractical to transport" in 2025-26 and paid their families instead.40
Ohio filled only 14.68% of its vacant driver jobs in fiscal 2025.43 Melody Coniglio, an Ohio transportation director and NAPT's incoming president, named the shift in thinking: "Recruiting new drivers will not solve the shortage if districts are unable to retain."43
Nobody fixed it with one move
Fairfax County, Cypress-Fairbanks, Boston and Duluth each pulled four or five of these levers at once.
Pay that beats the local market, not the state average
The question is what Amazon, the transit agency, the neighboring district and the contractor pay for the same license within a 30 min drive. Fairfax County went to $27.60 an hour with a top of scale above $31, added a $2,000 signing bonus, ran six job fairs and compressed screening into one visit. Vacancies fell 48% in a year, from 126 to 65, and 96% of routes ran on time to open 2025-26.50 Duluth reached full staffing after raising top pay from about $22 to about $26.51 Boston hit full staffing of 740-plus drivers at $29.13.52
Raises beat bonuses. Wages count toward benefits and pensions; a $1,200 signing bonus does not. Pinellas still had 70 openings "despite hiring bonuses" until it raised base pay.4953
Hours and benefits that make it a first job
Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, with 643 routes, went from more than 100 uncovered routes during COVID to three open CDL routes by December 2025. The recipe: $23.46 an hour on a year-round calendar with up to eight guaranteed hours a day, a year-long onboarding program, and full-time substitutes equal to 12% of routes.5416 Boston guarantees 31 hours a week year-round.52 Coffee County, Alabama licenses principals, teachers and custodians to drive as a paid second role.55 Stafford County, Virginia lets drivers bring any minor child or grandchild on the bus.56
Build the bench before you need it. Shortages are felt as absences, not vacancies. The first flu wave of winter is what cancels routes.
Pay for the license and shorten the wait
District-paid CDL training is table stakes. The differentiators are paying people during training, hiring them as monitors on day one so they earn while they wait, and one-visit screening. AFSCME Local 2040 in East Moline, Illinois built a free, driver-taught CDL program, graduated 25 drivers and staffed all 34 buses with standby drivers.57 Pennsylvania's School Bus Safety Grant Program, paid for by $25 of every $300 stop-arm camera fine, awarded $1.1 million in July 2026 to train 430-plus drivers.58
Backup on student behavior
Bus monitors are a retention line item, not a cost. Paulding County, Georgia runs 104 monitors; Marietta City Schools says it "would never delete monitor positions as a cost cutting measure."59 After its sickout, JCPS put climate and culture staff at every bus compound to receive referrals directly.3 Citrus County made discipline management step two of a three-step plan, between HR process and pay.32
Redesign routes and bell times so fewer drivers can cover the same kids
This changes how many drivers you need rather than how many you can find. Magnolia ISD, Texas adopted a three-tier bell schedule for 2025-26 projected to cut about 10 routes and save about $800,000.60 Rapid City, South Dakota cut more than 100 stops after a study found its stop count was triple the national average and buses were running about half full.61 Plano ISD reclassified "hazardous" routes, removing service for roughly 959 to 1,305 riders and saving about $1.04 million and 13 drivers.62 Philadelphia moves 55,000 of its 101,000 transported students on SEPTA fare cards.63
Model the bell-time and route scenarios before the board votes, with driver labor priced at what you actually pay. Consolidation chosen in May looks very different to parents than consolidation forced on the first day of school. Louisville is the proof.
Paying parents reduces demand, not the gap
Philadelphia pays $300 a month per household; about 13,000 students were enrolled in 2023 against 105 driver vacancies, and the district had paid out $46.7 million.6364 Chicago offered up to $500 a month to families of students with disabilities who declined service.65 Ohio's payment in lieu reached about 22,000 students, and a 2026 state workgroup recommended phasing it out.40 None of these programs reports closing its driver gap.
Recruiting that worked
Dallas Center-Grimes, Iowa parks a bus on Highway 44 with a "Drivers Wanted, We Will Train" sign and was fully staffed on day one in 2025 for the first time.66 East Greenbush, New York let anyone with a regular license test-drive a bus at a "bus rodeo" and hired five to eight people.6768 Massachusetts recruits stay-at-home parents whose kids can ride along, retirees, veterans and off-duty police and fire.69
fewer driver vacancies in Fairfax County in one year, from 126 to 65, after the board went to $27.60 an hour, added a signing bonus and compressed screening into a single visit.
A school bus license is a federal CDL with state layers on top
The layers vary enough that a tactic that works in Texas may be unavailable in New York.
| Requirement | How states differ | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum age | 18 for intrastate school bus work in most states; 21 in Hawaii and under some state certifications | Texas allows 18. New York's Article 19-A requires 21.7273 |
| State certification | None, or 20 to 40 hours of mandated training on top of the CDL | California: 40 hours initial training, 10 hours a year renewal, CHP fingerprinting, first aid.74 |
| Medical exam | Every one to two years | Kentucky H.B. 13 (2023) stretched it from 12 to 24 months.73 |
| Non-CDL vehicles | Prohibited, or allowed up to 8 to 12 passengers with a regular license | Kentucky H.B. 447 (2024), nine passengers. Ohio H.B. 54 (2025), 12 passengers. New Jersey A2180 (2025), staff or parents in private vehicles seating eight or fewer.757677 |
| Retirees driving | Pension earnings caps in many states; exemptions spreading | West Virginia H.B. 2346 (2023) lets retired operators substitute. Wisconsin A.B. 233 (2023) lets board members volunteer. South Carolina and Alabama bills pending.737879 |
| Driver authority over student behavior on the bus | Mostly district policy; a few states legislating | Kentucky's 2024 bus conduct bill passed the House 93 to 1.28 |
| State money for driver pay | From a state pay floor to nothing | South Carolina sets a floor. North Carolina barred Wake County from using state funds for raises.8053 |
The non-CDL vehicle laws are the most useful recent change: they move small special education and McKinney-Vento runs onto vans driven by staff with a regular license, freeing CDL drivers for full-size routes.75 New Jersey's principals' association warns that its version shifts liability onto boards.77 Emergency measures do not last: Massachusetts' National Guard drove vans for about two months in 2021 and went home once districts hired civilians.81 PennDOT's case for the modernized test, in one line: "Knowing the components of a school bus engine does not impact a school bus driver's safe driving skills."82
The superintendent who drives the bus
Keep scrolling. He or she has company.
If I can be a volunteer coach, then I can also be the volunteer bus driver.
Got his CDL over the summer to drive the girls' wrestling team he coaches. Now working through all 20 district routes with the regular driver aboard, to see "what it's like with a full bus of kids." Offered to pay the gas on field trips.83
When you talk about retaining staff, that's just as important as recruiting.
Has held a CDL for about five years and fills in as a last resort. After a local story ran, a retiree applied to drive.84
Our drivers are the first people that our students see in the morning and the last ones they see before they go home.
Took over in July 2025 nearly 14 runs short, earned a Class B CDL in about five weeks and drove his first route December 9, 2025.68
I never wanted to be a bus driver. I still don't want to be a bus driver.
Started CDL training after the shortage cancelled two days of school and stranded about 150 students.20
Children were on buses until nearly 10 p.m. Classes were cancelled for most of the following week.
JCPS cut routes from about 950 to 550 to match a driver corps below 600, redrew stops with an outside consultant, then added stops after the plan was done. The board later voted four to three to end busing for most magnet students.8788
The pattern is consistent: the superintendent covers one or two routes, earns goodwill in the garage, and generates a news cycle that yields a handful of applicants. It does not change the economics, and the superintendents say so. Consolidation forced by a vacancy count, done fast, is how districts end up on national news.
Next chapter08 What closes the gap
What closes the gap, from inside 40-plus transportation offices
BusRight Solutions builds and rebuilds routes with district teams. Customer Success supports districts in 36 states. What they see work is not one thing, and it is not only more drivers.
People, process and technology
Software alone does not fix a shortage. When a Colorado charter school asked for help with its shortage, the honest answer was that there is no playbook beyond sharing other districts' recruiting copy. When Valley Home, California lost its only driver, it outsourced everything. Routing changes how many drivers a district needs and how fast new ones become productive. It does not change how many people apply.
What the BusRight Solutions team has seen close the gap is all three working together. People is getting more drivers in seats, and it is only one part. Process and technology are the other five parts below. Districts that worked all of them went into this fall with routes covered.
If you need 100 buses, but you only have 80, you gotta figure that out. If you need 100 drivers and you only have 75, you have to figure that out. So I think there's a cohesiveness with that flow of technology, data, and utilization. And then when you get all of that together, your customer service improves. If your customer service is improving, your employees are happier.Peggie OvertonAgua Fria Union High School District, ArizonaIn The Rearview panel, Sept. 23, 202630
Fewer stops.
The BusRight Solutions team starts with the stop list, not the route list: duplicate stops, stops two houses apart, stops that exist because a parent asked in 2019. Every stop removed is minutes back on the route, and minutes are what let two routes become one. Rapid City cut more than 100 stops after finding its stop count was triple the national average.61
We have reduced our routes, our mileage by about 20% in the last 24 months. That's significant dollars when you talk about fuel costs and parts costs to keep those buses running. … Why do I run the same two different buses down the same road?Ben BennettEmmett Independent School District, IdahoIn The Rearview panel, Sept. 23, 202630
Fewer routes.
Consolidation and tiering are the structural lever, and the outcomes are measurable. Emmett ISD, Idaho took three buses off the road and saves about $250,000 a year. Director Ben Bennett raised driver pay about $5 an hour and credits routing savings with funding it. Poughkeepsie City School District, New York went from an estimated 26 buses to about 19, about $989,000, while absorbing eight schools and 400-plus students with no added drivers. Charter Schools USA in Florida went from 10 buses to nine on a four-tier system and "didn't need to hire another driver." Chardon, Ohio cut a route after modeling bell-time scenarios for its board.
The caveat is driver pay. Pickerington, Ohio reduced about 25 midday routes and cut trip times in half, and its chief operating officer counts 19 drivers lost over the summer, "probably for this."89 Cut routes and guarantee hours in the same board motion.
A sub who can drive the route on day one.
Turn-by-turn navigation on the driver tablet is the most repeated recruiting story the team hears. Maple Valley, Michigan: "We are the only district in, I don't even know how far from here, that doesn't have a driver shortage at the moment. This has probably brought us four subs. And some of those subs have turned into full-time drivers because they're not as scared." Carlisle, Ohio says two candidates cancelled interviews elsewhere after a ride-along with the tablet. A Forsyth, Georgia director: "I haven't seen drivers this excited since we added AC on buses."
I bring technology into my interviews. I show my bus drivers, ‘Here's what you're gonna be able to have. You've got this nice big-sized tablet that you can read, and will talk to you and shows you your route.’ … I let them know that technology will be their friend, and it's gonna help them be a better bus driver.Ben BennettEmmett Independent School District, IdahoIn The Rearview panel, Sept. 23, 202630
When you have only eight drivers and one calls in sick, it's a huge percentile shift that you have to do. What we did was we worked with the Solutions team to create backup routes. So we're already prepping for being down two and three and four drivers. … So when I get that call at 5:45 that somebody's not showing up, we just shift.Casino FajardoDirector of Operations, Evergreen Elementary School District, CaliforniaAttendance Starts with a Route webinar, Oct. 8, 202689
Parents on the app, so the office can route instead of answer the phone.
A short-staffed office cannot answer "where is my bus" 200 times a morning and still cover open routes. Districts that pushed app adoption hard, with invitations at registration and ridership cards at the stop, report the call volume dropping and the same two people in the office spending the morning on coverage instead. Pickerington counts about 6,200 families accepted on the app against roughly 6,500 riders.89
I get so much feedback from our parents on the app and the ridership cards that it's amazing. They love it. They love the visibility they have of their student. They love the visibility they have of their bus. So just having parents have that at their fingertips has reduced the phone calls into my office tremendously.Dawnett WrightPeninsula School District, WashingtonIn The Rearview panel, Sept. 23, 202630
Communicate upstream, before the board hears it from a parent.
Pickerington's chief operating officer, reviewing an on-time tracker the BusRight Solutions team built: "They could save money all day long, but on-time performance for bus drivers is 100% the number one priority. Every bus is late if one is late." The district targets 87%, aims for 95, and has found on-time performance tracks inversely with parent call volume. The directors who kept their boards calm this fall brought the vacancy count and the on-time number to the same meeting, with the plan for both.
That gives me peace of mind because I know my board's not gonna get a phone call. I've noticed our folks, our community likes to go straight to the leaders, straight to the superintendent, the board of education. And if we can find a way to prevent that by being quick, efficient, good communicators, we're doing that.Rob WeinheimerChief Operating Officer, Pickerington Local School District, OhioAttendance Starts with a Route webinar, Oct. 8, 202689
fewer route miles in Emmett, Idaho over 24 months, after the director started asking what the department could do less of. The routing savings funded a raise of about $5 an hour.
Eight moves. Check off the ones you have already made.
Your checklist stays in this browser. Nobody else sees it.
Price the job against the 30 min labor market
Amazon, transit, the next district over, the contractor. Fairfax, Boston and Moore County all saw applications respond when they went above local market.
Fix the hours before the hourly rate
Guaranteed hours, year-round calendars, blended roles, midday field-trip work. This is what drivers ask for right after pay.
Pay for the license and shorten the wait
Paid training, hire as monitor on day 1, one-visit screening, every state shortcut available.
Give drivers backup on student behavior
Monitors on the hardest routes, a referral line that answers, and a policy that lets a threatened driver say no.
Build a bench
Full-time substitutes equal to 10 to 12% of routes. Absences cancel routes; vacancies just make them long.
Redesign routes and bell times on your schedule
Not the vacancy count's. Model it with real labor costs before the board votes.
Make a substitute productive on day one
Turn-by-turn, per-student school lists on the tablet, short onboarding content, and reliable data behind all of it.
Manage to on-time performance and tell parents the truth
On-time rate is what parents feel and what drives calls into a short-staffed office. With 15% of the workforce turning over every year, keeping five drivers equals five hires plus five licenses.
See what routing can do for your driver count
Every BusRight Solutions engagement to date has cut at least one route. Bring your routes, your bell times and your vacancy count, and we will walk the scenarios with you.
Book a demo
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