An Ad for Bus Drivers

By Tibni Valle

As times progress and technology advances, the education system has seen many changes. However, since their implementation in the 1920s, school buses have remained a prevalent institution in schools. Inarguably a necessary and efficient mode of transportation for students, school buses meet students' needs and ensure a safe and timely arrival to school.

“It's my only way of transportation in the morning,” said Jackie Castillo, a junior at BGHS. 

“Both of my parents work, so they're usually busy all the time,” elaborated Betania Gomez, a sophomore. 

“What's the point of picking me up if there's buses at school?” she reasoned. 

The school buses’ necessary existence as a school service is due to their accessibility and practicality. All students living within Bowling Green High School’s district area, are eligible to ride the bus, as stated by Cedrick Browning, Bowling Green City Schools’ Director of Operations. 

“All students are eligible. The only caveat is if a student lives within a mile radius of their school they are attending, they have to be a walker. That's a walking zone and that's a Kentucky Department of Education state policy,” he said. 

Another required policy is the monthly inspection of school buses by a Kentucky State Certified School Bus Inspector. 

Browning stresses the need to carry this policy out by explaining, “These buses are driven every day for 180 days for the school year. We have buses that drive students during the summer for summer school and trips. We deal with unexpected issues, accidents, fender-benders, or maintenance issues. So it's a lot of wear and tear.” 

While recognized among students as beneficial and essential, that doesn't prevent the occasional complaint directed towards school transportation. Aside from expected comments about schoolmates and the smell, a common complaint is the overcrowding of buses. 

“My bus is a little overcrowded. I try to sit in the back but there's like lots of people,” said Zabdiel Munoz, a freshman on bus #31. 

The Kentucky Department of Education transports over 385,000 students on nearly 8,795 school buses. A small disturbance in desired seat placement on the bus is justified, but what happens when that boundary starts to be pushed?

Melanie Beltran, a sophomore who also rides bus #1, stated, “There's definitely overcrowding, there's multiple seats with 3 people or even some people on the floor.” 

We’re seeing cases where students aren't complaining about not getting the seat they want. They’re complaining about not getting a seat at all. 

“What if the bus brakes really hard? If there's three people to a seat, one person could just go flying,” noted senior Misael Munoz, who takes bus #31 to school. 

In addition to the obvious risks posed by overcrowding, the quality of the transportation students are receiving is also plummeting. Students are not only experiencing a shortage of seats. Their experience riding the school bus is becoming overall unpleasant, as stated by Betania Gomez, who rides bus #1. 

“It just gets really cramped up and crowded. It's uncomfortable,” she admitted. 

In regards to other factors that one might assume contribute to her discomfort, Betania commented, “There's not really any behavior issues most of the time either so it's usually not that bad.”

“I'm a former teacher and administrator and now I'm in this role. I will say that our students are, from what I see compared to other districts and other transportation directors I speak with, our student behavior is by far not as bad as other districts,” agreed Browning. 

Melanie pointed out another issue that arises as a result of the overcrowding of buses. 

“We used to get home earlier, but now that we have like a billion kids on the bus, we get home at like almost four, that's a whole extra hour,” she said. 

In order to address all of these complaints, it's necessary to identify the cause of the overcrowding. Browning attributes part of the blame to the natural way of things but also allots some of the blame. 

“Let's say bus A and bus B are going to a similar area, but they don't have the exact same stops. You may have 5 or 6 kids who ride bus A normally, but they have some friends on bus B and they really wanna go hang out with their friends. It's just a 10 minute walk from their house, so they'll ride bus B on that day,” he explained.

“There's no one to really monitor that, especially at the high school level. Those are things that, system wise, we need to do a better job of. Not just our transportation department, but the entire district.”

While students are dealing with overcrowding and the string of problems that come with it, the Department of Transportation is dealing with its own. 

“The biggest issue we have right now, and this is a national issue, is a shortage of drivers. We just don't have enough drivers,” Browning revealed. 

In September 2023, there were 192,400 bus drivers working in K–12 schools, a 15.1% decrease from 4 years ago. This statistic has been reflected in our district this year, according to Browning. 

“My first three years in this position, we had all of our routes covered as far as fully staffed and we even had like two to three substitute drivers. This year, we've had zero subs,” he said. 

This year in particular has seen an even greater shortage of drivers. Around October, the district lost 5 drivers in a matter of 3 weeks, sending the department “into scramble mode.” Often, Browning himself along with his supervisor were driving routes themselves. 

“I'm a director, but I drive a lot of bus routes. Right now I'm currently driving on a regular basis, a preschool route,” he said. 

This year's particular struggle with staffing has clearly been noticed by students as well due to the effect it has had on the number of students being assigned to each bus. 

Melanie in particular stated, “I don't know if it's just the freshmen or other upperclassmen that have entered that bus but I feel like people have been dumped there. Everybody just started living on the same route and now we're just all on the same bus. We're used to the overcrowding of the freshmen and new people coming in, but this year it just boomed, everybody just came to our bus.”

Interestingly, students on bus #18 described a decrease from last year in the number of students on their bus. 

“It's less packed than other years,” noted Jackie. 

Maria Espino, a sophomore, agreed stating, “It's way different. Last year it was way more crowded.” 

In the words of Browning, “it's a numbers game.” One year you might have a lot of students in one area and the next, you might not be picking any kids up in that area. 

“I think it's just the natural way of things. Kids get older, they graduate, then there's no kids there anymore and it kinda just goes in cycles. People move in and move out. We try our best to move those stops around if we can and move kids to different buses,” said Browning. 

Addressing the issue of overcrowding while simultaneously dealing with a driver shortage gets difficult when you have to decide which students to switch to another bus or pinpointing pick-up locations. If a bus is overcrowded, you can move kids, but that might mean some kids have to walk a little bit more than others. When asked about how they think the overcrowding should be addressed, students suggested adding more bus routes or splitting routes. However, there are a lot of factors that need to be considered. 

“That's the first thing that everybody wants to do, and trust me if we had the staffing, we'd love to do it,” Browning responded. 

The shortage is not the only factor that needs to be considered. After emphasizing how important consistency is to parents and students, he reiterated the issues that would come along with not having a consistent bus driver, like buses arriving late or early to stops. 

“That's the thing we just can't afford to do right now,” he said. 

At the moment, adding more routes is not possible, but in an attempt to address the issue of overcrowding, the Department has made an effort to buy bigger buses. The typical school bus can seat 48 adults, sitting 2 per seat. When Browning first came into his current position, the school had 66 passenger buses. 

“Now they say 66, but that's when you’re [sitting] three to a seat, which happens sometimes. We've bought buses that are 72 passengers or 78 passengers. We've been trying to stick to buying buses that seat more students,” he said. 

In addition to buying bigger buses, Browning guarantees that there are multiple drivers in training, as soon as those people are certified, the Department can get them on routes.

Browning also says that they are working on ways to track students better and ensure that students are on the right bus. The Department has recently signed to work with a company that is going to work with schools to make bus routes more efficient. After evaluating the current bus routes, changes might be seen near the end of the school year. 

“We just started working with them now and we may see some things towards the end of the year that we will look at and you may start seeing a few little changes,but the idea is for us to try to implement these fully in the fall,” said Browning. 

Another thing students can look forward to is a new communication system that parents and students can sign up for by downloading an app. Through the app, students can be notified about any delays or snow days via notification. 

This year has been undeniably difficult for students and administration alike. 

“I'm sure it's been frustrating and I'm sure it's been a lot to deal with. Change is hard regardless of what you're doing. I just want them to know that we are definitely trying,” said Browning. 

“The best thing I could tell students is to be patient and know that we are working on it and continue to share these things with me. I have an open office anytime. Anybody that wants to ask questions or send any concerns to me, I'll listen to you,” he assured.