Wake County bracing for possible school bus stop delays as driver search continues
RALEIGH, North Carolina (WTVD) -- The Wake County School District is bracing for potential bus stop delays as it deals with a bus driver shortage.
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There are 745 bus routes district-wide and 20 of those could be impacted. As a temporary fix to combat the shortage, the district is implementing shared bus routes. That means one bus will be doing multiple runs.
Officials say students and parents could be waiting an extra 15 minutes because of the shared runs.
"Usually, the first group of students live very close to the school so the bus can be first in line when school lets us. They then can come back around in 15 minutes and pick up a second group of students that make live further out from the school," said WCPSS spokesperson Lisa Luten.
The district is down 70 bus drivers going into the new school year and has been taking to social media hoping to drum up job interest.
Wake held two job fairs last week and is hoping to get new bus drivers in rotation in the next few weeks.
"It's important that our bus drivers are qualified and they're safe to drive children, so we'll do a lot of background checks, They'll go to commercial driver's license training," explained Luten.
Wake transports 70,000 to 80,000 students each day.
