Kimberly Garner's daughter attends Eagleton Elementary School, and for seven consecutive days last month, her school bus simply didn't show up. With her husband working in Knoxville and the family sharing one car, Garner said the sudden cancellations turned ordinary mornings into a logistical scramble that ate into both of their workdays.
Garner said the bus cancellations were happening every day, forcing her husband to leave his job two hours early just to make the pickup line in time, according to WVLT. Garner works from home, but with only one vehicle between her and her husband, the burden of covering last-minute cancellations repeatedly fell on him. The station reports that Blount County Schools declined to comment on the cancellations affecting families like the Garners.
The route disruptions stem from Rocky Top Tours, a private contractor that runs some of Blount County Schools' bus routes, per the same account. The company attributed the cancellations to a driver shortage, saying it simply has fewer drivers than its routes require. When a driver calls out sick, the station notes, the bus for that route doesn't run at all.
A Veteran Contractor Says This Shortage Is Different
John Clabough, who has worked in school buses for more than 30 years, said the company has not experienced this level of driver shortage before, the report states. Rocky Top Tours notifies the school and the transportation director when Route 23 will not run that day. Clabough said there is no clear solution until more drivers are hired, according to the outlet's reporting.
That staffing crunch isn't isolated to one bus company. Blount County Schools relies on a decentralized system of 12 private bus contractors — including Rocky Top Tours — rather than a district-owned fleet, running 73 regular-sized and 34 small buses to transport roughly 9,000 students daily, according to the Blount County School District. The district budgets around $5.5 million annually for regular education transportation and another $1.8 million for special education transportation. Alcoa City Schools has also posted a school-bus-driver recruitment notice, per Alcoa City Schools.
Why Replacement Drivers Aren't Easy to Find
Part of the delay in filling vacancies comes down to red tape that exists for safety reasons. Tennessee regulations address requirements for school bus drivers, according to the Tennessee Secretary of State. Those requirements mean a sudden vacancy can't be filled overnight, even when a contractor is actively recruiting.
State law also shapes why families like the Garners don't have a guaranteed right to a bus seat in the first place. Under Tennessee Code Annotated § 49-6-2101, local school boards are authorized — but not required — to provide transportation, and busing is generally offered to students living more than 1.5 miles from their assigned school, per WATE-TV. That discretion leaves individual districts to decide how much to invest in shoring up contractor-run transit systems when problems like Blount County's emerge.
The shortage in Blount County echoes a national pattern lawmakers have already tried to address. In April 2025, U.S. senators introduced the bipartisan Driving Forward Act to ease persistent school bus driver shortages that officials warned threaten student safety and access to school nationwide, as Hoodline previously reported.
District Points to After-School Care as a Workaround
Facing no immediate fix, Blount County Schools suggested Garner enroll her daughter in after-school care, WVLT reports. Garner said she opposed paying for additional child care simply because the district's bus contractor couldn't keep routes staffed. Her daughter's route is running again for now, but Garner said she still receives near-daily texts warning that other bus routes are being canceled or delayed elsewhere in the county.
Blount County Schools serves roughly 10,100 students across 20 schools — 14 elementary, three middle, three high, and one alternative school — covering unincorporated parts of the county along with communities such as Eagleton Village, Seymour, and Townsend, according to background compiled from the district. Every bus in the fleet carries GPS units that update locations every 30 seconds alongside onboard cameras, per the same district information, though that technology does nothing to fill an empty driver's seat. Garner said parents often only learned about a cancellation on the day it happened, leaving little time to arrange alternatives.
How the District Might Handle Contractor Shakeups
Blount County's school board could consider shifting routes between contractors if capacity problems arise. Whether the board will consider a similar move for Route 23, or take other steps to help contractors retain drivers, remains an open question for Blount County families still waiting on a permanent fix.
