The board of education approved temporary rotational bus service starting on Monday, December 2 and lasting through December 20.
The schools district said the the move is needed to ensure more dependable service for more families. While service will only be offered for four days, the school district points out that that may actually be more days of service for some families -- as the current system made it possible that the same route saw multiple days of outages.
The new plan will reduce the service coverage but rotate that reduction around equitably.
The full schedule for this rotational bus schedule can be found here.
Durham Superintendent talks about temporary bus route reduction
Elias Escobar is a senior who takes the bus to school. He said bus problems have left him stranded a few times.
"Sometimes they'll be taking different routes or be canceling it ... talking about we need to find our own rides. So it's very difficult," he said.
Escobar is hesitant about the pending bus plan and what it will mean for long-term bus service.
"There needs to be more bus drivers, most definitely. Because without them, it's just like nobody -- some people don't got a ride home and stuff like that. So they got to wait."
Officials said the move will also help district leaders tackle the bus driver shortage more efficiently.
Families will be responsible for transporting their students to and from school one day each of the three weeks this schedule is in effect.
Superintendent Dr. Anthony Lewis spoke about the changes Friday afternoon. He emphasized that providing safe and consistent transportation for all students was something the district took seriously and did not plan to abandon. He emphasized that this plan was temporary and that work continues to restore full bus service as soon as possible.
Lewis also said any absences or late arrivals on the days students do not have bus access will not count against the student's record.
Mika Twietmeyer, the president of the Durham Association of Educators said the shortage isn't just making it harder for kids to get to class, it's also making it harder to learn.
"This is a situation where families are frustrated, educators are frustrated, transportation workers are, you know, maxed out on capacity. And now they're going to have to navigate some of their routes that they might not be their daily routes," she said.
And some students haven't always been able to make it at all.
"Our educators have been really worried because students have been chronically absent due to this bus driver shortage. And yet they are really interested in working with the transportation bus drivers to remedy the situation. And nobody is upset with bus drivers because the whole issue is, there are not enough bus drivers to fill all the routes," Twietmeyer said.
This isn't the first bus shortage DPS has dealt with in recent memory.
Back in January of 2024, 33 schools saw significant delays due to the absence of 26 drivers.
Those absences centered around a pay dispute between DPS and their workers.