Since the beginning of the school year, the bus driver shortage has been plaguing students who ride the bus home. It has resulted in students riding a different bus or wait for another bus route to finish before they can go home.  

The Ranger Record spoke with assistant principal Kevin Wilson to better understand the shortage. According to Wilson, the bus driver shortage isn’t new or local; it’s been going on since the 70s across the country. Wilson said that this happens at the start of every year. 

“We have a large number of students at this campus who ride buses, so a lot of [students] sign up, many of them don’t ride the bus, but the bus barn has to put them on a bus,” Wilson said. “So, the first three to six weeks is all about how many students are going to ride buses, who’s going to be there, and then they start organizing how the buses and the routes are going to happen. This isn’t anything atypical, this is a pretty typical pattern.” 

When asked about the reasoning behind the shortage, Wilson brought up the process of getting a Commercial Driver’s License, which takes 60 to 90 days and requires a test with three different parts. The difficulty of obtaining a CDL often leads people to become truck drivers instead. 

“If you’re going to go through three months of getting a CDL, many people then just become over-the-road drivers,” Wilson said. “[They] make exponentially more money than being bus drivers. We don’t pay drivers as much as they deserve to get paid, but we can say that for the rest of education.” 

These challenges make it difficult to hire bus drivers, but Wilson said the staff at Goldstar, the bus company the school district is partnered with, is doing their best to handle it. 

“When it comes to Goldstar, they’re their own entity,” Wilson said. “They’re a contracted firm, part of the contract is to hire bus drivers. They are doing everything they can to retain and hire bus drivers as much as they can.” 

Ultimately, Wilson said that this year has been better than years past, and even with the heat, students can choose to wait inside. 

“This year, we’re done by about 5, 5:15, so it’s not as awful as it could be,” Wilson said. “I know the heat is what really affects the parents, many of them are like ‘it’s hot’, but we put the kids inside, so the kids are nice and safe in the building. It’s really been better this year than it has in years past.”