Budget increase not enough to solve Alberta school bus driver shortage, industry leader says
CBC
Getting three kids to and from school has become a huge hassle for Jon Ballard and his wife.
His family lives about 10 minutes away from the northern Alberta hamlet of Ardmore, where his daughter attends school.
His two teenage sons attend a high school in the town of Bonnyville, and two weeks ago, that bus route was temporarily cancelled due to a lack of drivers.
Ballard and his wife have been shuttling the teens to and from school, and though they carpool with neighbours, the trips are taking a toll — racking up gas costs and cutting into their working hours. Last week, his daughter's bus also wasn't running.
"There are days that our kids do have to miss school because we just can't accommodate everything," he said.
Recognizing that a province-wide shortage of school bus drivers has put school divisions in a difficult position, Ballard is urging the provincial government to increase student transportation funding.
"Let's pay the drivers more," he told CBC News on Thursday.
Nicole Garner, a communications officer for Northern Lights Public Schools (NLPS), said in the last few years, more small contractors have been either retiring or leaving the business due to increased operating costs.
"It has been extremely difficult to find drivers to fill vacancies," she said.
Between two to four routes have been temporarily cancelled this year, and though the school division has consolidated routes to address a driver shortage, all its buses are now running at full capacity.
The driver shortage is affecting both rural and urban communities. Communications officers for Edmonton's public and Catholic school divisions said driver shortages are still causing school bus delays, though the situation has been improving.
Garner said NLPS expects the shortage will worsen as parents who drove their kids to school to reduce the risk of COVID-19 exposure during the pandemic put kids back on the bus.
Mark Critch, president of the Alberta School Bus Contractors' Association, said finding people willing to work a part-time job with a split shift has been difficult for years, but because of the rising costs of insurance, training, parts and maintenance, transportation companies have little to no room to raise drivers' pay.
"We're in serious trouble as an industry," he said.
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