Duluth School District Working to Prevent Future Route Cancellations

DULUTH, Minn — Wednesday morning, the Duluth School District was forced to cancel bus routes on the west side of the district due to a staffing shortage.

When bus drivers call out, the district reaches out to substitute bus drives as well as Voyager Bus who runs bus routes on the east side of the district. Voyager was unable to help out since they had a few drivers call out as well.  It was then that the difficult decision had to be made to cancel two bus routes for the day.

“We apologize to any families that were affected yesterday due to the issue having a shortage. It’s not something that we ever, ever want to do. It’s been quite some time since we’ve had to cancel bus routes due to a staffing shortage. We do everything in our power to make sure that every single route is covered so that students can get to and from school without any issue,” said communications officer Adelle Wellens.

In order to attract more drivers, the district is working at making the job more appealing as a career.  Another way the district is working at eliminating problems like the one experienced on Wednesday is to be more efficient with their drivers.

“We have a new transportation manager and the first thing he noticed and wants to change this summer when we go into next year is that the bus driver who’s driving the morning route, isn’t always the same bus driver at night. So that’s why yesterday we had two different groups of families affected,” said Wellens.

If you are interested in becoming a bus driver for the Duluth School District, starting wages are over 21 dollars per hour plus benefits. Driving a bus also requires a CDL license which the district will pay for your training and the license.