With paltry part-time pay and a CDL requirement, school districts are struggling to recruit new school bus drivers and shuttering their student transportation services as a result. Several purpose-built ride-sharing apps have risen to prominence attempting to fill the void. These apps essentially function as paid carpooling services with negligible pay and baked-in safety measures.
The gradual collapse of school bus services across the country accelerated in 2021 with in-person learning returning. In Massachusetts, the driver shortage quickly became so severe that Governor Charlie Baker deployed the National Guard to drive school buses across. However, a school district outside of the mission area was forced to cancel classes due to the lack of available drivers.
Chicago Public Schools was one of the hardest-hit districts with only a fraction of students eligible for bus service. Only 17,000 out of 325,000 children get to board a yellow bus every school day. Parents are forced to get their kids to school themselves or find an alternative. The Associated Press spoke to Erin Rose Schubert, a volunteer for the CPS Parents for Buses advocacy group:
“The people who had the money and the privilege were able to figure out other situations like rearranging their work schedules or public transportation,” she said. “People who didn’t, some had to pull their kids out of school.”
Ridesharing apps, like Piggyback Network, HopSkipDrive and Kango, have become sought-after alternatives. Piggyback operates as a true carpool network and costs around 80 cents per mile for parents. The drivers are other parents and they are paid in credits towards future rides of their kids.
HopSkipDrive and Kango collaborate directly with school districts to operate. The companies promise to perform extensive background checks on drivers to ensure student safety. The drivers are also expected to be commute caretakers, helping to get students with disabilities from the curb to inside the building.
Driver pay is better than Lyft and Uber but that’s a low bar to clear. We’re only in this situation because school districts couldn’t pay CDL holders what they’re worth.
