Bus Driver Shortage: NJ District Forced To Reschedule Sports Games

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Regional Board of Education on Wednesday night approved the hiring of five bus drivers for the 2021-22 school year.

It also accepted the retirement of one driver and the resignations of two others.

It's been that way for months, said William Doering, the district's business administrator, and Laurel Venberg, the district's director of transportation.

"It's like we're gaining one and losing two," said Venberg, who was promoted to director in July following the retirement of Margaret Donnelly, the district's longtime transportation director. "We had someone submit their papers just the other day."

The district is short 50 bus drivers right now, Venberg said. They have 32 contract positions that are not filled, and she needs an additional 20 drivers on the substitute list, ready to fill in for drivers taking paid vacation, who have a medical leave or, now, those who need to quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure.

All of the retirements and resignations have had a domino effect, and the newest domino to fall is after-school sports. The lack of available buses is forcing the district to reschedule games, primarily at the junior varsity and freshman levels, district officials said.

"We don't have buses available until 4 p.m.," said Ted Gillen, athletic coordinator for the Toms River Regional Schools. That means away games start later, with the potential of running out of daylight. Some districts have been letting students out of class early to accommodate sports Gillen said, and others have been rescheduling games, too.

The district has tried to hire private bus companies to fill some of the needs, but the private companies, which are facing driver shortages as well, have declined to bid on bus runs, Interim Superintendent Stephen Genco said.

The Toms River schools have been trying to come up with alternate solutions, including asking parents to drive their children to away games, but that only helps where there are parents available to do that. Having students drive themselves is not an option, however.

"We can't have 17-year-olds driving on the Parkway," Genco said.

The school bus driver shortage is affecting districts all across New Jersey and across the country. In Glassboro, the school district changed dismissal times at two of its schools after it was left short due to eight driver resignations right before the start of the school year. The Woodbridge and Edison school districts eliminated routes, which means there are more children on each bus — making for longer travel times and less social distancing.

The shortage is so acute in Massachusetts that the National Guard has been activated to help drive school buses, and in Philadelphia, the school district is offering parents a $300 a month to drive their children to school.

In the 2019-2020 school year, Toms River had 132 bus routes, with drivers assigned to high school bus runs and then as shuttles, Venberg said. "We had 30 buses that would help with the sports," she said.

In 2021-22, there are 99 bus runs in the Toms River district due to the lack of drivers. The driver shortage led to adjusting start times for five schools, consolidating bus routes and aligning them to maximize efficiency. That means every driver has bus routes all day, and there are no drivers for shuttles or for sports until the last elementary school runs are completed. She has one substitute driver.

"I have two members of the office staff driving buses," due to drivers who are out on COVID-19 quarantine, Venberg said.

Toms River currently has 24 people who've applied to drive for the school district, including three people who have commercial driver's licenses but do not have the state endorsements for driving passengers and school buses, Venberg said.

Trying to get them through the licensing process has been challenging, she said. The fingerprint process alone is taking three weeks, and Venberg said getting answers from the MVC to emails takes as much as a week.

William Connolly, a spokesman for the New Jersey Motor Vehicles Commission, denied there are delays in replies from the MVC.

"Driving schools, bus operators, and school administrators have direct access to NJMVC Agency Operations, which responds to their inquiries within one business day," Connolly said. "They are then able to get CDL permit or testing appointments within a day or two."

The fingerprint process is managed by a third-party vendor for the state, Connolly said.

Another part of the problem is obtaining a commercial driver's license and the school bus endorsement has become more difficult over the years, Venberg said.

"They used to just have a school bus driver's license," said Venberg, who drove for a private bus company for a dozen years before joining the Toms River school district 17 years ago.

The federal government requires the CDL for school bus drivers. Part of the CDL testing requires commercial drivers to know all of the parts of the engine, to be able to make a repair if they break down miles from the nearest service center.

"A school bus driver does not need to know how to repair an engine," Venberg said. "That's what we have bus mechanics for."

"We've thrown so many obstructions in the way," said Evie Wills, administrator of the New Jersey School Bus Contractors Association, an organization of private school bus companies.

Laws passed in the wake of the fatal 2018 Route 80 school bus crash that killed an elementary school student and a teacher have led to people during in their bus keys, she said.

In 2018, New Jersey passed legislation requiring that school bus drivers over 70 provide a federal Department of Transportation certification of fitness every year and, if over 75, every six months.

"I've had transportation directors tell me they are losing their best drivers," because of that rule, Wills said.

To be certified to drive a school bus, you must have a valid New Jersey driver’s license, be at least 21 years old, and have a clean driving record for at least three years. You must pass a U.S. Department of Transportation physical — which must be performed by a doctor certified to conduct those physicals — and drug testing, a criminal background check and be fingerprinted.

After that there's a written exam and road test to get the license with passenger and school bus endorsements. It's a complex process, Wills and Venberg said.

And fewer people are applying for driving jobs, both said. They were hopeful that with the end of the $300 weekly additional unemployment payments the number of applicants will go up.

Connolly said the state has taken steps to make the CDL process more efficient for those seeking to drive school buses.

"Most school bus driver candidates are now tested via a streamlined scheduling process that is coordinated with the school bus industry and school districts, which allows CDL applicants to complete several steps in one visit," he said.

"We are in regular contact with school districts and commercial driving schools. When either identifies a school bus driver candidate, we offer testing and credentialing through this bulk, expedited process. Our aim is to move all school bus drivers into prioritized scheduling and off our regular scheduling platform."

The goal is to put "tested, properly credentialed drivers behind the wheels of school buses as safely and quickly as possible," he said.

Wills said what the state has done is allowed people who are seeking to become school bus drivers to make an appointment with the MVC to have their documents approved, take the written test and schedule their road test all in one trip — instead of having make three separate trips to accomplish those tasks. And once the prospective driver makes an online appointment, the private companies can reach out to the state to get that appointment moved up.

She said those accommodations happened after the private bus companies contacted the state and warned them of the crisis the state now faces with the driver shortage.

Though Connolly said the state MVC has made that available to school districts as well, it was not clear if or how well that's been communicated to districts. Venberg said Toms River schools applicants have to make their appointments online but did not mention getting any part of the process, including the road tests, expedited.

Venberg did say not everyone who applies to be a school bus driver is a good fit for the job. There was a candidate who was released during training because of continual lateness on the bus runs — the result of stopping to chat with people, she said.

"If the driver was late during the training process, what would happen when no one was along to monitor it?" she said.

For some, however, bureaucracy is the only hurdle keeping them out of the driver's seat.

Steve Padula of Berkeley Township has been approved as a Toms River Schools bus driver. Padula has a current commercial driver's license and spent more than 40 years behind the wheel driving trucks. He wants to get away from the toll that long-haul trucking takes with long days on the road away from home.

"I have my physical, I've been fingerprinted," he said. The only thing holding him up? The written test for the school bus endorsement.

"I missed one question too many," he said. He's tried to schedule a retest, and the documentation gives a deadline for doing so, but trying to get an appointment in the Toms River MVC office has been frustrating.

"The first one available was the middle of November," Padula said. The only other options were to drive more than an hour to take the test. "It's ridiculous because every other computer in Toms River is sitting there wide open."

"I have nothing on my license," Padula said. "No DOT infractions. No motor vehicle infractions."

"There has to be a better way," he said.

As Venberg continues to try to find drivers and usher them through the licensing process, Gillen is left to keep trying to find solutions to transport athletes. He acknowledged a parent's complaint about communication on the issues at Wednesday's school board meeting and promised to improve the communication.

Solutions are not easy to come by. Gillen said possibilities are being discussed, but few are immediate answers to a problem that's only going to worsen as all of the sports hit full season. Fall is the busiest, with football, boys and girls soccer, field hockey, girls volleyball, cross country, girls tennis and gymnastics all taking place.

But finding solutions will become more critical as the winter season approaches, with the potential for hazardous driving.

Gillen hopes the district is able to get more drivers into bus seats by then, to give the district more options.

"We always look for creative solutions," Gillen said. "When you don't have people who can drive (the buses) how can you get creative?"

This article has been updated with additional comment from the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, and to correct the information on the New Jersey law on requirements for physicals for drivers age 75 or older.

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