Running short: six things every district leader should know about the bus driver shortage

There were 9.5% fewer school bus drivers in the United States in August 2025 than in August 2019. 31% of districts changed school start times last year because they could not cover the routes. The average driver is 55.

We spent this fall reading federal labor data, school board minutes from 2023 to 2026, driver interviews and the field notes the BusRight Solutions team keeps from more than 40 transportation offices. The result is Running Short, an interactive white paper on how districts are managing the shortage and what is actually working. It takes about 12 minutes to read. If you only have two, here are the six things to know before your next board meeting.

1. The shortage is long-term

The contractor workforce is down 28.8% from 2019 and the decline in district drivers started a decade earlier. Fall 2025 was the first year nobody in a national survey called their shortage "desperate," and 31% of districts still moved bell times to cope. Mild is still a problem, but it is fixable.

2. Much of the problem is the job itself

A split shift caps most drivers at about 32 hours a week. The median driver earned $20.11 an hour in 2023, 20% less than the median worker, and 43% less per week once the hours are counted. That split shift leaves a three to five hour gap in the middle of the day, and many districts offer no retirement benefits.

3. Fully staffed districts made several changes at once

Districts that are fully staffed again made several changes at the same time: above-market pay, guaranteed hours, paid training, substitute drivers on the team and changes to routes or bell times. Fairfax County went to $27.60 an hour, added a signing bonus and moved screening into one visit, and vacancies fell 48% in a year. Cypress-Fairbanks went from more than 100 uncovered routes to three.

4. 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. Drivers who leave name the same things: student behavior on the bus with no backup when they write a referral, the split shift, no benefits in many districts, and being told to "just drive" when they report a problem.

5. Routing is one of the levers you control

Pay, hours and training affect how many drivers you can hire. Routing affects how many drivers you need. Emmett, Idaho cut route miles 20% over 24 months and used the savings to fund a raise of about $5 an hour. Rapid City cut more than 100 stops after a study found its stop count was triple the national average. Poughkeepsie went from an estimated 26 buses to about 19 while absorbing eight schools, with no added drivers.

6. Watch November 28, 2026

The federal exemption that lets school bus applicants skip the engine-compartment portion of the CDL test expires that day unless FMCSA renews it. Every state that leaned on it to shorten training has a decision coming.

The white paper also has the voices behind the numbers: three transportation directors who just came through back to school on our In The Rearview panel, the drivers who left and the ones who stayed, and the superintendents who got a CDL and drove the route themselves. The last chapter is an eight-step checklist for district leaders. BusRight Solutions works hand-in-hand with district teams on routing, and every engagement to date has cut at least one route.

Read Running Short, the full white paper. Start reading here.

If you want to know what routing can do for your driver count, talk to BusRight Solutions. Former transportation directors and routers who rebuild routes, stops and bell-time scenarios beside your team.