On Monday, August 7, Kira Lilly received a text and an email from Albemarle County schools informing her that her daughter, a rising eighth grader at Walton Middle School, would need alternate transportation to and from school due to a shortage of school bus drivers and cancelled routes.
“It was sort of a shocker, especially two weeks prior to school, getting that confirmation that nope, your kid doesn’t have transportation,” said Lilly in an interview on Charlottesville Right Now. “And it’s about a 25, 20 minute drive one-way to Walton from my house… Doing that twice a day during the middle of a workday, that presents some challenges.”
Albemarle experienced a school bus driver shortage during the last school year, and ACPS spokesperson Phil Giaramita says the problem continued this year.
“It impacts about a thousand students,” Giaramita told Charlottesville Right Now. He said the school system typically transports about 6,000 children to and from school each year, covering 550 bus routes and 3,500 stops. A survey to determine how many students were requesting transportation was completed a short time ago, and Giaramita says once the bus routes were created, the driver shortage was identified.
The email sent to parents explained that priority bussing was being provided to lower income and ESL students as well as students with a disability. Lilly said that isn’t the case across the board.
“I do personally know individuals who also are low income, their children may receive reduced or free lunch, and they also got this same letter that their children would not have transportation to Scottsville Elementary,” she said. “They put that language in the letter, but I’m very curious on how they did that analysis because it doesn’t seem like that’s what happened.”
Lilly says her older child, a rising senior at Monticello High School, will be able to drive his sister to and from school most days, but many families won’t have that option.
“I’m just mad for all the other parents basically that this is really creating a hardship for,” she said.
Last year, several current and former school bus drivers spoke out about frustration with school administration. Lilly says she has heard similar complaints from drivers.
Giaramita says the pay for drivers has been increased and a recent job fair drew close to a dozen potential applicants who will be able to step in once their training is complete.
“As we hire bus drivers to fill those routes, the service will be restored,” he said. “So we don’t expect and don’t anticipate that if you don’t have service on August 23, that’s going to be it for the entire year. That won’t be the case. We’ll be restoring service as we’re able to.”
