PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Philadelphia School District is looking into whether the Pennsylvania National Guard and even Amazon can help to ease the effects of a national bus driver shortage.
“The unfortunate impact of this is that individuals are not showing up [to schools] on time, and in many cases are not being returned home in a timely manner,” said Superintendent William Hite.
“It’s definitely impacting children getting to and from school."
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The state of Massachusetts has deployed the National Guard to drive students to school. Hite said Wednesday that he was exploring a similar strategy.
“We actually made a call to the governor’s office yesterday, just to start the process of exploring what it would take to consider something like that,” Hite told reporters at a briefing at school headquarters.
“We’re talking to then about the feasibility of that. And then you have to think, 'What are we going to ask them to do?'”
Hite said guard members with commercial drivers licenses may be able to drive vans to transport children. Hite said he has also asked Amazon for help with logistics.
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“This is not a problem that money will be able to solve in and of itself,” Hite said. “It’s the availability of drivers.”
The district has three bus driver vacancies, Hite said, but its contracted bus companies have 89 jobs open.
The district has also doubled the amount it’s offering parents to forego bus service and drive their own children to school, from $150 to $300 a month. Hite said about 2,000 parents have signed up, with the district budgeting for as many as 10,000.
It’s also looking into giving SEPTA Key cards to parents without cars, to ease the yellow bus crunch.
Hite explained the district’s transportation troubles in a letter to parents Tuesday.
