Rochester school buses are delivering kids late, sometimes by more than two hours. Why?

At precisely 8:43 a.m. on a recent weekday, a yellow school bus eased to a stop in front of Adrian Burrows' house on Grand Avenue in northeast Rochester. A quick wave to his mom on the front porch, and the fifth-grader was on his way to Frank Fowler Dow School 52.

That's the way it's supposed to happen every day.

For Burrows and an untold number of children across Rochester, however, things have not always been going to plan this year. Families and teachers have frequently reported buses arriving more than two hours late, robbing children of time in class and wreaking havoc on their parents' schedules.

It is a consequence of a national and regional bus driver shortage that has created headaches for transportation directors everywhere, in particular after COVID-19.

After a particular crisis that caused a delay to the start of the 2021-22 school year, RCSD has diversified its group of transportation contractors and generally done better at getting its students to school — not just its own buildings, but more than 220 public and private destinations ranging as far as Batavia and Rome, Oneida County. The range is due in part to RCSD's high concentration of homeless children, who are entitled to sometimes-extensive transportation under federal law.

Still, there is no supply of back-up drivers for inevitable absences, RCSD Chief of Operations Jacob Scott said. Instead, the district usually sends out mechanics or dispatchers with commercial driver's licenses or else double-routes its other drivers, even if that means children arriving at school around lunch time.

Bus drivers have burn-out amid crisis

That in turn means some drivers are spending eight or nine hours at what is supposed to be a part-time job, leading to burnout among the most reliable employees.

"It's directly related to the bus driver shortage," RCSD Chief of Operations Jacob Scott said. "Every district you talk to, everyone is dealing with the timeliness of buses due to just not having enough bodies to operate them. ... It's just that in the city, our numbers are just so much higher than our suburban counterparts."

The wages are high enough that money doesn't seem to be the problem, Scott said. Instead, he said it's simply a matter of people not being interested in driving a bus when other options are available. The job is part-time with inconvenient hours, technical requirements and a great deal of responsibility.

The phenomenon of children arriving nearly halfway through the school day, though, is a new development, and still unsolved with little over a month left in the school year. Afternoon buses are reported being late as well, though that problem seem not to be as widespread.

Tamika Ware's two children are in second and third grade at Children's School of Rochester (School 15). On many occasions, she said, she has had to pay $15 for an Uber to get them to school after the bus hasn't arrived. Other times the bus has gotten to school after 10 a.m., nearly three hours after school starts at 7:30 a.m.

"I wake them up at 5:30 to get on the bus at 6:20," she said. "That's a long time to be sitting there waiting by the door."

Burrows' mother, Adriana Jackson, estimated her son's bus is late by more than an hour two or three times a month, usually when the regular driver is absent.

As a result, she has to stay home with him and can't be at her own job — an internship at another RCSD school, part of her associate's degree program to become an early childhood teacher with a focus on children with disabilities.

Such teachers are scarce, and so Jackson would be in high demand. The late bus has caused her to miss enough of her internship, though, that she is at risk of not completing all the hours she needs to graduate this spring.

"They want me there from 9 until 2 but I can't come until 10:30 because the bus is late," she said. "I understand the lack of drivers, but they have to find some type of solution for parents that are in school or working."

School buses in Rochester are hours late at times

Scott could not provide data regarding how widespread the problem is, but teachers and parents at schools across RCSD have noted the trend with alarm throughout the school year.

Margie Toscano is a parent in the district and a teacher at School 15. On several instances, she has gotten an early morning phone call stating that her children's bus would be between one and two hours late.

"If I did not have access to an automobile, that would be missed learning for my children as well as missed income for myself," she wrote in an email. "This is also an issue when it comes to the families of students that don't speak English. These families are left at home wondering what is going on and why their children are not at school."

The late arrivals are particularly difficult as well for students with disabilities like the 10-year-old Burrows. He has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, his mother said, and relies on a regular structure to maintain focus.

"He needs that consistency and getting to school on time to establish his routines," Jackson said. "If they're getting to school after the bell rings, that teaches them that it's OK to be late."

Driver jobs: Starting wage is $27 an hour

Secondary students in RCSD generally take RTS buses and most of the yellow buses for younger students are operated by outside contractors. In Burrows' case, the bus is provided by First Student, a national transportation company.

A First Student spokeswoman said the company is offering a starting wage of $27 an hour plus signing bonuses of up to $5,000, but still is struggling to recruit drivers. (Regardless of the hourly rate, though, school bus driver roles are rarely full-time gigs and the spread of times when you work during the day can make it hard to have a regular second job.)

"We understand the frustration families feel when there is a service delay. The core of the issue remains a nationwide school bus driver shortage," the spokeswoman wrote in an email. "Increasing our pool of drivers would provide more flexibility to manage day-to-day operations. In the meantime, all available resources are being used to cover bus routes in Rochester, and we remain committed to doing everything we can to get students to and from school on time."

For parents like Ware, those promises ring hollow as the minutes tick by on school days.

"It’s sad when your kid wants to learn and they’re not taking them," she said.

"If they my kids weren’t going to school because I was a lazy parent, they’d come after me. But they’re not making it a priority to get them to school."

To learn more about becoming a bus driver, visit www.rcsdk12.org/careers.

— Justin Murphy is a veteran reporter at the Democrat and Chronicle and author of " Your Children Are Very Greatly in Danger: School Segregation in Rochester, New York." Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/CitizenMurphy or contact him at jmurphy7@gannett.com .

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Rochester school buses are delivering kids late, sometimes by more than two hours. Why?