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Nassau County School District Director of Transportation Brad Underhill said that with 63 routes and 64 bus drivers, NCSD is "on the edge," but he doesn't expect unusual amounts of delays this year. File photo
As parents are prepping their kids to go back to school next week, the Nassau County School District is readying its bus fleet as well.
The subject of bus routes and bus drivers was added to the agenda at the July 27 meeting.
“We received the bus routes the day after the agendas went out,” Nassau County School District Superintendent Kathy Burns said. “They still need about 29 bus drivers, so they’re still making the magic happen and ensuring our students get to school.”
With the shortage in bus drivers, Burns said some routes running in previous years have been combined with other routes to “accommodate the worker shortage that we’re still experiencing.”
“With the drivers that we have, they do a phenomenal job,” Burns said. “Although our number of routes has reduced by approximately 20%, our ridership has increased by approximately 10%. We currently have 64 drivers and 18 aides. We need to add approximately 10 new routes to alleviate increased route times and average bus occupancy. We already know these are issues going into this year.”
Board chairwoman Cynthia Grooms asked where the need for buses was greatest in Nassau County, to which Director of Transportation Brad Underhill said it was Yulee because of the population density. Last year, confusion ensued following the cancellation of several stops in Yulee, making for hectic first few days of school.
“We haven’t removed anything compared to last year,” he said. “What we’ve done is reorganized the routes to help deal with some of the overcrowding, and it’s not really overcrowding. We don’t drive buses that don’t have enough seating capacity, but when you’re putting three secondary kids to a seat, they don’t like to scrunch in like that.”
While the district does not expect confusion like last year’s, Underhill said there is always some at the beginning of the year.
“We need to tell parents ahead of time, ‘Be patient. You’re gonna have delays,’” Grooms said to Underhill. “Do you predict a lot of delays in getting to school?”
“At the beginning of the school year, while everybody’s trying to get out to the buses and figure out their stops and stuff, there’s always delays,” he said. “But during the course of the school year, we very rarely experience delays.”
With 63 routes and 64 drivers, Underhill said they were “on the edge.” While other districts have had to cancel routes if a driver calls in sick, he said, NCSD has been able to avoid drastic measures like that by recruiting teachers and other staff to help drive buses if the need arises.
“Usually where there’s going to be a problem is going to be at the secondary level for Yulee,” he said, “just because of the availability of space. Those are the buses that are likely to have 70 to 77 kids on them.”
School starts Thursday, Aug. 10.
hdorman@fbnewsleader.com
