Cancelled school bus runs a 'growing problem,' union president says

It is only three weeks into the school year, and a shortage of school bus drivers is already taking a toll.

Six school bus routes were not operating in the Anglophone West School District on Monday, five on Tuesday, three on Wednesday and four on Thursday.

Late notifications of up to an hour or more also plagued the alert page on the district's website. Other school districts posted similar notifications.

Iris Lloyd, the president of CUPE Local 1253, which represents school bus drivers, said it's a growing problem.

"It's very bad," she said. "We are hearing detailed reports from bus drivers all across the province of more and more runs not running because of lack of recruitment and retention of the school bus drivers."

A spokesperson for the Anglophone West School District, Paul MacIntosh, said superintendent David McTimoney wasn't available this week for interviews, but sent a statement saying the bus cancellations are due to a shortage of casual bus drivers when there are multiple absences.

Lloyd said there aren't enough people coming in who want to be school bus drivers because "the wages are just not reflective [of] the stress and the responsibilities."

"Just to give you an example, in Anglophone West, I know of [in] the last three weeks, at least four people that have taken leave of absences to go get a better paying job," she said.

"So we are losing the bus drivers that we currently have."

Over the summer, some schools had their schedules adjusted to accommodate the challenges around school bus routes, after the province announced an extra hour of school for students in kindergarten through Grade 2, bringing them to the same dismissal time as students in grades 3 to 5.

This meant a late start and late dismissal for some schools, which caused worry for some working parents, particularly  because of the ongoing bus issues.

Lloyd said the start and dismissal time changes haven't had much of an impact as far as she can tell. 

"If anything, it's caused more confusion for the bus drivers that are working now," she said.

Lloyd said bus drivers need to be offered a real living wage to help with recruitment and retention. 

"The stress levels that the bus drivers are facing now, I can see more and more of them leaving the public sector to go take these private sector jobs because they're being paid more, there's better benefits and a lot less stress," she said.

The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.