Higher Demand, Declining Workforce Challenges Durham School Transportation

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In August, before Durham Public Schools traditional calendar students returned to class, 17,000 riders were registered for bus transportation.
“We had those routes covered,” said Mathew Palmer, senior executive director for school planning and operational services at DPS, during the Oct. 10 Board of Education work session. “We had drivers assigned. We were ready.”
But once those schools reopened, another 6,000 students registered their need and several bus drivers left the district, leaving 131 school bus drivers to handle 425 trips in the morning and afternoon. The district should have at least 160 to help account for 20-30 callouts each day. Without the workforce, DPS transportation staffers – and some teachers and administrators with commercial driver’s licenses – find themselves behind the wheel. Or, as now happens, the district has to start culling routes because it simply cannot serve all students.
“It is unfortunate, it is painful, and it is unfair,” Palmer said. “It hurts to say, but we have to be candid and clear with our community and our administration. Today we couldn’t carry all our routes. That is a reality for us on a day-to-day basis. The implications of that are profound.”
He reported to the board that the district is seeing an all-time high in ridership demand simultaneous to an all-time low in driver staffing – a national shortage that seems as though it’s gotten worse with the allure of jobs driving for Amazon, Lyft, and DoorDash.
“We are truly on our hands and knees, asking for administrative and board help with a driver crisis that is not unique to Durham,” Palmer said.
Buses run late, or sometimes not at all. Students wind up coming to school late, missing breakfast and losing learning time. School board members on Thursday urged administrators to make sure students aren’t facing academic penalties because of transportation issues, and to be certain that they’re able to get breakfast and make up for missed work.
Palmer told the board that transportation staffers have met with Edulog personnel, North Carolina State University faculty, and routing trainers from the state Department of Public Instruction to brainstorm what he described as “wicked problems.” They’re exploring several tactics, he said, but none of these options is without consequence (sometimes financial).
Among other things, the district recently signed an agreement with the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles to allow DPS to accelerate training for drivers in Durham to acquire their commercial license. The district has more than 30 drivers in the queue, but they’ve got to get through the class and attrition continues to wear on Durham’s school bus driver workforce.
“The cost of living in Durham is high,” Palmer said, “and pay for drivers is not high enough.”
Superintendent Dr. Anthony Lewis told the board that Edulog staff checked out their machines and learned more about GPS concerns, which are now going to become part of the regular safety inspection required by drivers before they take their bus out to get students.
But Lewis agreed that the biggest concern is workforce. Among the ideas he floated during the meeting:
- Covering a $250 fee for drivers that are earning their CDL, as long as the reimbursement waits until they’ve worked for DPS for a certain amount of time.
- Sign-on bonuses.
- New vans bought with funds from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott.
- Child care for bus drivers.
“We’re not just hoping someone signs up to drive a bus,” Lewis said. “We’re thinking proactively and creatively.”
One strategy the district might consider involves walk zones to determine whether to offer transportation within a certain range.
The district has a school walk zone policy that, if invoked, could provide transportation only to families that live beyond a 1.5-mile perimeter from a school. Currently, 171 routes out of 425 live within 1.5 miles of school. However, of those, 120 are elementary school routes, and it would strike many parents as unacceptable to expect a child to walk that far to and from school along busy roads that might not have sidewalks.
Some students live within a half mile of their school, Palmer noted, “and there’s reasons they need the bus.”
Board Member Bettina Umstead wondered how much impact the Growing Together redistricting plan had on the stress placed on the DPS transportation system. Palmer referenced a Jan. 19, 2023, meeting where staff estimated a need for 188 route packages and 145 drivers to handle the needs of Growing Together. Today, thanks to efficiencies put in place by the transportation team, DPS got that down to 151 route packages and 131 drivers.
Between bell schedule changes, driver recruitment, planned-stop evaluation, and route planning, Palmer said, the district has done everything it can to streamline the process where it can.
“There’s nothing left for our folks to give,” he said. Eventually, one must recognize that it’s about fixing a human workforce problem.
Board Chair Millicent Rogers asked Palmer to provide an on-the-spot, 30-second elevator pitch for recruiting drivers. He took on the challenge, saying:
“The only pathway out of poverty goes by the schoolhouse door. We have some of the finest educators in America. We have an administration and a board that is compassionate and loves its children. And we need qualified professionals that are going to show up with a smile when they open that bus door and make it possible for that child, whatever they may dream, and there is no more rewarding work than that in this country if not the world, and it’s a special person who’s going to do that.”