R-I makes temporary bus route changes due to bus driver shortage

Friday, August 20, 2021

By MICHAEL SHINE, Contributing Writer

Some middle school and junior high students with the Poplar Bluff R-I district won’t be met with a bus for the first day of school Monday morning.

The district is facing a shortage of bus drivers. While there’s been a shortage of drivers for years, this time it’s different.

“We’ve tried everything all summer long,” said Dr. Scott Dill, superintendent. “I have no choice but to change my ridership a little bit until we get drivers hired.”

With the start of school looming and the district short 10 drivers, Dill said, staff and officials had to make a tough decision to change the boundaries of which areas walk to school and which receive bus pick up.

Dill wants parents to know this is a temporary change while the district fills positions. He hopes to have at least some positions filled by the end of next month.

“I want to reverse the situation as quickly as possible,” Dill said. “I want to, you know, to have those kids on those buses.”

While this is a change for the district, under state law a school district only receives compensation for bus routes farther than three miles from the campus.

“Historically, in the Poplar Bluff School District we have operated with anything over a mile has been our pickup radius,” Dill said. “This is not about a cost-saving measure or anything like that. I would gladly pick those kids up again. I just simply do not physically have enough drivers right now to fully staff everything.”

Dill said this is part of an issue that extends outside of the school district and education: a labor shortage.

“Right now, there appears to be a shortage of labor, regionally, and businesses, are just having a difficult time,” he said. “We are included in that mix. We are all competing for employees.”

A map the district released marks the extended boundaries and gives two different categories.

To the east of North Westwood Boulevard, which is the side with the schools on it, is a roughly 1.5-mile area that doesn’t have a bus route.

However, Dill said, he didn’t want students to cross the busy road.

An area west of the main roadway will have one pickup and drop-off stop on Maud Street. Dill said the pickup time will be 6:40 a.m.

“If a student wants to get transportation across the highway, then they’ll be present and jump on that bus in the morning,” Dill said. “They’ll be returned to Maud Street in the afternoon and have to make their way back to their homes.”

He expects a high rate of people who didn’t hear about the change on Monday.

“That’s reasonable when historically the bus has come by the house and grabbed the kids,” he said.

For those interested in being a bus driver, Dill said, the district will help with licensing. To be a bus driver, somebody needs to have a Commercial Driver License.

Information about the change can be found on the school district’s website, poplarbluffschools.net.

TEMPORARY BUS RIDER CHANGES

Temporarily boundary lines for bus riders at Poplar Bluff Middle School and Poplar Bluff Junior High.

The yellow (RIGHT) portion of the map is a no-transportation zone. The blue (LEFT) portion of the map will have limited transportation available. Students will need to make their way to Maud Street and afternoon dropoff. Students will need to be at Maud street at 6:40 a.m. to catch Bus 25.