PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The start of the school year is right around the corner, but many area school districts don't have enough school bus drivers.
In Philadelphia, most students ride SEPTA or walk to school, but the district does provide yellow bus transportation for about 33,000 students. And there are not enough drivers to meet that need.
And with about 210 school bus drivers working for the district now, they are only about ⅔ of the way toward meeting that need.
"We need about 105 bus drivers,” said district Spokeswoman Monique Braxton.
Braxton says the district has contracts with 13 bus companies to cover unfilled routes. But the bus contractors face their own hiring challenges. Statewide, there are 3,500 job openings for school bus drivers, according to the Pennsylvania School Bus Association.
A little help may be around the corner, though. Starting Monday, Aug. 28, PennDOT will waive the part of the commercial driver’s license exam that requires bus drivers to be able to identify engine components under the hood.
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Gerry Wosewick, executive director of the School Bus Association, says that should streamline the licensing process.
"The bus driver never once has to go underneath the hood. So, those are the kind of concerns that the kind of prospective drivers that we get have."
Wosewick says the shortage means earlier pickup and longer rides for kids trying to get to school and back home.
"The biggest consequence of not having drivers is that you are going to have longer routes."
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The School District of Philadelphia already takes steps to help drivers get their CDLs, says spokeswoman Monique Braxton.
"We provide about a 45-day CDL training period. It's our pipeline for bus drivers," she said.
Another way the district is trying to ease the drivers crunch is by offering parents $300 a month to transport their children to and from school.
Area schools are now hoping that the state relaxing its CDL requirements will go even further.