Yesterday marked the start of Durham Public Schools' new rotational bus schedule, an approach to tackle the stark bus driver deficiency gripping the district. Students across Durham are now provided with transportation only four days a week under this scheme. Immediately, parents are feeling the strain, with many having to rearrange their schedules to ferry their children to school on days without bus service, as reported by CBS 17. Jelina Catania, a parent of four, now juggles multiple school drop-offs. "I certainly appreciated them getting picked up because we have four kids," Catania said. "I have to make three different stops at three different schools right now."
Working in tandem with these immediate changes, DPS is engaged in crafting a more sustainable fix. Grouping school buses into five segments with one group going unserved each weekday hopes to alleviate the crisis triggered by a perfect storm of increasing demands for rides and dwindling driver numbers. According to WRAL News, around 73% of the district's approximately 32,000 students necessitate school bus transportation, posing a serious logistic challenge. Efforts are underway to recruit upwards of 60 drivers immediately and 100 in total for the long haul.
Due to the shortage, DPS management staff have been caught driving buses instead of refining logistics and creating more efficient routes—an issue DPS plans to tackle come December. "They have not been able to do that ... simply because they were behind the wheel," explained Joe C. Harris Jr., DPS director of transportation fleet services, in a report by WRAL News. The hope is to optimize routes against actual usage, but until then, the disruption continues to cause long waiting hours and unpredictable schedules for families.
Meanwhile, the community has displayed admirable resilience. At George Watts Elementary School, a parent initiative led by Jennifer Pryor is organizing volunteer drivers to ensure students have a way to school. "We're just trying to find, as a community, ways we can support one another," Pryor said in a statement obtained by WRAL News. The aim is to bolster a student's right to education, a point underscored by the affect it has taken amidst the current transportation upheaval findings."
Despite the upheaval, the district Board of Education Chair, Millicent Rogers, sees a silver lining in the rotational busing plan. According to WUNC, Rogers, who has also begun driving her child due to the shortage, believes that a predictable no-service day is a lesser evil than sudden and erratic cancellations. "It's better to have set times that I'm not available ... rather than having to panic at the last minute," Rogers explained. Designed to spread the impact evenly, no student will be left without a bus for multiple consecutive days, hopefully stabilizing attendance and reducing the strain on families—many who have been forced to rely on this transit despite the difficult times they have had in recent months.
