PENDER COUNTY, N.C. (WECT) – It’s the first week back to school, but it’s taking some students in Pender County longer to get there.
Leaders with the school system say they’re facing a bus driver shortage, leaving students with long wait times before and after school.
“We just need a solution,” Tucker Barrett said.
Barrett has a nine year old daughter who takes the bus everyday.
He says the night before her first day of school, the school system notified him her bus did not have a driver.
That led her to get to school an hour late.
He says he now gets messages almost everyday, with wait times up to two hours long.
“We were hopeful that we could start the year with timely bus routes. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we hope to have all buses running on time as soon as possible,” Barrett was messaged by the school system.
Barrett said his daughter wakes up before 6 a.m. and typically gets home at around 4 p.m.
“It’s a chunk of her day. She’s exhausted by the time she gets home,” Barrett said.
Superintendent Brad Breedlove said the county has battled this same issue for years.
“It’s a tough job, you know, right now we have approximately 10 or 11 vacancies across our system, of which we have four or five people that are currently in the pipeline to fill those vacancies,” he said. “When we compare ourselves to others, we are in better shape in some regards, but at the same time, it’s still challenging, and it still impacts families across the board, whenever we have to run a double or a triple route because we don’t have enough drivers.”
Breedlove says a solution would be a three tier bell system.
That means elementary, middle, and high schools would let out at three separate times.
“It would allow us to have more full time drivers, in addition to reducing congestion on roads, being more consistent,” Breedlove said.
However, parents voted down the idea at a community forum in March.
“Unfortunately, it does mean that families that have a elementary or a middle school child would not be on the same bell, and so it’s gotten voted down over the last several years from our community,” Breedlove said.
It’s leading parents like Barrett to question why leaders have not come up with a way to solve the problem they’ve had year after year.
“We knew it was an issue the entire summer. It’s really hard for us to believe that we haven’t been able to find a solution,” he said.
Breedlove is asking for patience.
“This is top priority for our system. You know, we can’t educate students if we can’t get them in school on time and get them out on time. We want a great experience for our families. I just ask that they be patient. Typically, it takes a week or two to iron everything out and smooth. And that’s that’s what you can expect here,” he said.
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