School bus driver shortage: Durham parents must drive students to school 1 day per week in December

Durham parents will have to drive their children to public school one day a week starting after Thanksgiving.

Durham Public Schools is implementing a rotational schedule from Dec. 2 - Dec. 20, only providing school bus service four days a week for each route.

On Friday, DPS Superintendent Dr. Anthony Lewis said the rotation could extend into 2025.

"Again, our ultimate goal is to ensure that the dedicated staff that's needed to clean the routes up, to make the routes more efficient [and] that they're able to be in the office to clean up those routes," Lewis said. "However, we will communicate that with families well in advance."

Lewis said the district is short-staffed about 100 school bus drivers.

The district emphasized this is a temporary solution, which is scheduled for the three weeks between Thanksgiving and the holiday break. It means Durham parents will need to find rides for their kids to get to school three days total over that three-week period.  

In recent months, Durham parents have complained of students waiting long hours for school buses and late notice of buses not running. Oftentimes, parents must pick their children up too.

Courtney Eason has students at two magnet schools in Durham.

“Their bus, I want to say, runs maybe 30% of the time,” Eason said. My wife will have to leave a meeting or cancel a meeting, or I will have to reschedule a showing, or something like that to accommodate picking up my student."

The temporary changes are due to lack of drivers and high ridership demand from families.

The district has divided buses into five groups, with each group having no bus service:

Group A: No bus service Monday

Group B: No bus service Tuesday

Group C: No bus service Wednesday

Group D: No bus service Thursday

Group E: No bus service Friday

“The bus has been challenging from the beginning,” said a parent of a Lakewood Middle School student.

The parent, who did not want to be named, had mixed feelings about the temporary solution.

“Some people may have zero access to transportation, and so not having a bus might mean either your child doesn't go to school that day, or a parent has to leave work early and lose pay, or the child has to take a public city bus home,” the parent said.