Pender County Schools face bus route delays due to driver shortage
PENDER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — With students returning to school, some parents in Pender County have been frustrated this week by bus route delays.
Parents of some students received a text message Sunday, less than 24 hours before the start of the school year. The message informed parents that their child’s bus route either wouldn’t be running or would arrive an hour and 15 minutes late.
The alert caught many parents off guard. Parents like Georgia Kurre, who had to make other arrangements to get her son to school on time.
“He has a very important class first thing in the morning that he does not need to miss, and so we definitely want to prioritize his education and get him there so that he can be learning first thing in the morning,” Kurre said.
Another parent, Amie Gauthier added that parents are working together to find alternative solutions.
“Luckily, we do have some really great neighbors, and all of our neighbors have kind of banded together for carpooling and rotating, and texting, and figuring everything out together, but it’s definitely not easy,” Gauthier said.
WWAY reached out to Pender County Schools. Superintendent Brad Breedlove told us the reason buses are running late is because of a lack of available drivers.
“It’s really the number of bus drivers that are available, and that really is our pinch point,” Breedlove explained.
Breedlove said there are currently nine vacancies in the district, with five of those in the process of being filled.
Pender County Schools has also increased pay for bus drivers to attract new applicants. In the meantime, though, Breedlove said he hears those parents’ concerns.
“We don’t like having a bus sitting there on the lot because we don’t have a bus driver,” Breedlove said.
The school district is also considering a three-tier bell system, where different schools let out at different times. The idea is that the system will reduce congestion, and allow for less bus drivers to make more stops on time.
