For those of us in the school bus industry, the arrival of the fall is more than a mere change of seasons. While the leaves turn gold and are blown about on a cool autumn breeze, school transportation administrators and their staffs scramble to prepare for the first day of a new school year — one that will inevitably herald a plethora of changes. Too many students, too few buses and drivers, too painful a migraine to plan the ever-changing routes... These are just a few of the causes of the back-to-school blues.

While certain start-of-the-year complications are inevitable, many can be avoided or eased by taking preparative measures. The first step is in identifying the key problems that plague your operation each year. From there you can investigate the means of squelching those problems. We asked operators across the country about the causes and solutions to their back-to-school blues. Here is what they said:

Overcrowded buses
During the first week or so of school, it’s common for drivers to be greeted with far more passengers than anticipated. This, combined with a shortage of drivers and buses, makes for an inferior transportation experience, both in comfort and in safety.

“Most districts seem to have the same problem year after year. The driver gets to stop number one where there should be 10 students and there are 35,” comments James Brehm, foreman for Broward District Schools in Okland Park, Fla. To blunt the effect of unwanted surprises, drivers at Broward attend meetings the week before school starts to anticipate any problems that might arise and discuss possible solutions. They also conduct two dry runs to familiarize themselves with their routes and find possible shortcuts or efficiencies. Finally, says Brehm, his staff tries to have every bus running the first week of school. “There are always a few that don’t make it. Then we have four or five standing by (sweep buses) for overloads,” he explains.

David Pace, director of transportation for Virginia Beach City (Va.) Public Schools where 68,000 students are transported daily, agrees with Brehm that operators should do everything possible to alleviate overcrowding on routes. “We attack overloads as our first priority, to assure a seat and a safe ride to all children,” he says.

Driver shortage
Few operators these days are escaping the hardships of the nationwide driver shortage. Lack of drivers only complicates the already dire overcrowding situation, as fewer drivers means fewer buses on the road to transport the expanding population of students. Driver recruitment and retention are at the top of almost every operator’s list of challenges.

At Buffalo City (N.Y.) School District, where transportation services for 27,000 students are contracted through Laidlaw, the driver shortage has not been severe, but it’s been constant. “It’s not my headache for the recruitment, but it becomes my headache when there aren’t enough drivers and you’ve got a lot of sub drivers out there,” explains John Fahey, assistant superintendent for the district. “Recruitment is a constant effort,” he says.

Pace says that driver recruitment is also a continuous effort at Virginia Beach. “Fortunately, we were able to train enough drivers to cover all of our routes for the opening of school in September. Unfortunately, we had to deplete our substitute list to do so,” he says. About 60 of the district’s 560 drivers are absent daily, says Pace. “With no substitutes, we must double up buses or send buses back to get students.” Doubling buses, he points out, results in overloads and standees. Sending buses back to retrieve students makes students late to their destination. “We are in continual pursuit of school bus driver applicants to relieve this condition,” he says.

Howard Pearson, transportation supervisor at Fort Smith (Ark.) School District, says having enough drivers and matching drivers to routes are a couple of his greatest concerns each fall. Fort Smith runs 43 routes and transports about 1,400 students daily. “At present we are fully staffed, but we don’t have enough substitutes,” says Pearson, noting that the driver shortage is having about the same impact this year as it did last. “On some days we will use mechanics and office personnel to cover routes and activity trips,” he says.

When school opened this fall, buses at Duval County Public Schools in Jacksonville, Fla., were running up to two hours late because nearly 50 school bus drivers did not report to work.

Most of the absent drivers worked for First Student, which shares Duval County’s student transportation contract with three other companies. The companies took over transportation for the district earlier this year, replacing more than 100 local companies that used to provide those services.

Though First Student representatives said they wouldn’t fire the absentee drivers, they announced a plan to offer a $3,000 bonus to drivers who remain with the company through Christmas.

According to The Florida Times-Union, Westside LLC, the contractor serving the west side of the school district, had an excess of 130 drivers, but was unwilling to lend them to First Student unless Westside could take over the routes permanently. Westside subcontracts with about 80 local bus contractors. Officials at Duval County terminated the contracts with these subcontractors before the start of the school year and gave the added business to First Student. “Some of us subcontractors are bitter and upset that we lost our routes. We don’t want to help Band-Aid the situation,” said Dudley Perez, president of Westside LLC.

At press time, the school board was still meeting to decide how to remedy the situation.

Routing changes
When an operator is lucky enough to have the buses and drivers needed to conduct efficient business, his efficiency is often undermined by routing changes. These may come from students who move or require adjustments to service or they may result from new schools and other programs within the service area. Pace and his staff are dealing with the opening of a new school, the changing of school zones and the relocation of two schools within the district. “We redesigned routes to accommodate these moves,” says Pace.

In addition to the challenges presented by construction matters, Pace says that routing is further complicated by last-minute changes in addresses or programs, particularly among special-needs students. To combat potential snags in the system, Pace makes sure his staff gears up adequately for the start of school. “The special-needs transportation staff always spend the Labor Day weekend in the office assigning children to buses due to last-minute changes in address or program,” he says.

Pearson echoes Pace’s sentiments on the routing challenges presented by special-needs students. “Each year, just when you think you have the routes correct, the phone calls come in with changes of address. Sometimes enough of these calls will cause you to start rebuilding your routes,” he says. Another difficulty presented by special-needs routing, says Pearson, is the necessity to design routes so that special-needs students spend as little time as possible on the bus. When it comes to coping with these challenges, Pearson says patience is key. “Just accept it [routing changes] and do the best you can, always keeping in mind what is best for the students,” he advises.

Fahey suggests reducing the number of route changes by getting as much information on students as possible before school starts. To do so, his transportation department sends out Transportation Information Check forms in the middle of the summer, notifying parents of their children’s bus stop location and requesting that the address and other critical data be verified. If the form is not returned, the student is deactivated and cannot ride the bus. Using the U.S. Postal Service’s “return service requested” system, those letters that could not be delivered to the addressee are returned to the district, along with a forwarding address, if one is available. “This information alerts us to further investigate the circumstances of that child and to cancel him or her from the bus we had planned,” explains Fahey. “We get a very good response to the mailing. Parents seem to understand what we are trying to accomplish and have been very appreciative.”

Student training
No matter how old they are, students inevitably return from the summer break having forgotten everything they were taught about the school bus the year before. They arrive late to the stop or go to the wrong stop because they take for granted that the bus will pick them up the same place it did the year before. This confusion, of course, throws the bus off schedule. “We always run ten to 15 minutes later the first couple of weeks, because the kids are not used to getting on the bus over the summer,” attests a driver in Jacksonville, Ark.

Pace agrees. “The first week or two of school requires a learning curve for the students to find their school bus at dismissal time. Until this takes place, school buses do not leave on schedule and run late to every school assignment except the first one,” he says.

The younger children who have less experience with the system require even more training. At the end of the school day, they often can’t remember which bus to get on to go home. To compound the problem, many parents drive their younger children to school in the morning, which only makes it more difficult for those students to learn to identify their school bus and driver when it comes time to wage their own way in the afternoon. Many districts take time to provide bus orientations to kindergartners who will be riding the bus for the first time. Others adorn buses with pictures of animals or symbols to distinguish one from another. A small child may not be able to remember to get on bus number 21, but she will usually remember if she’s on “the cat bus” or “the rabbit bus.”

At Oceanside (Calif.) Unified School District, children in kindergarten through third grade have the aid of color-coding in identifying which bus is theirs. A holder bearing a colored square of plastic is affixed in the first passenger window, to the left of the service door. The morning driver issues two colored wristbands to each K-3 student and writes the afternoon bus stop on them. One wristband is to be worn for a few days and the other is to be affixed to the student’s backpack or some other school item. “When parents drop the student off [in the morning],” notes Transportation Director John Farr, “teachers are responsible for making sure the proper-colored wristband is issued to the student.” Wristbands are available in a wide variety of colors in both plastic and paper. Farr says he uses both, because the combination of the two allows for more color options.

Fielding calls
What would the beginning of the school year be without the sound of phones ringing off the hook? Peaceful? Well, probably not, but it sure would be a heck of a lot quieter. Sadly, that prospect is nowhere in the near future. So how can we make the best of the stressful situation that greets us behind the door to the transportation office? Unfortunately, the most realistic answer is this: wait it out.

“You can imagine the telephone calls that can be generated by our 68,000 sets of parents when buses run off schedule,” says Pace. “Fortunately, this is an opening-of-school dilemma and eventually subsides as children board the bus in a timely fashion.” Dealing with parent complaints, says Pace, requires listening carefully, sympathizing when necessary and providing reassurance that the problem will be solved. “The members of my staff are well-seasoned and realize that they must remain calm at all times in order to reduce the stress level and to maintain their own sanity in these times of crisis,” says Pace.

Fahey says he’s reduced the number of calls to the transportation office by sending out the Transformation Information Check forms well in advance of the start of school. He spreads the mailing out over several weeks in the summer, to keep a steady but manageable flow of responses coming into the office. “It’s much less of a headache doing it now than it is in September, because they’re calling in September if there’s no bus for them,” he says.

Whatever you do, don’t let on to parents that you’re frazzled, or they will lose confidence in the department and its staff, which will lead to further unwanted calls. “The opening of school always increases the adrenaline level of all the staff,” notes Pace. “But we always survive — a little scarred from the battle sometimes, but alive.”