BILLINGS— A Montana school district’s administration members and paraprofessionals are driving students amid a school bus driver shortage.
This includes Huntley Project School District superintendent Mark Wandle, who is filling in behind a school bus wheel this year.
Watch to see how the district is getting students home:
“We're doing our best and we haven't had to limit, as some districts have, our circumference where we're starting to haul students from yet and we're hoping we don't get that way,” he said.
The district is one of many in the nation struggling to recruit bus drivers. According to Economic Policy Institute, there were 12.2% fewer bus drivers on the road in 2024 compared to 2019.
The district has lost three drivers in the last two years, forcing the district to combine routes and students to wait longer getting home.
“We are an amazingly large school district with about a thousand miles a day of bus routes before and after school combined,” Wandle said.
The drivers have been difficult to replace.
Transportation manager Candi Buck said one possible reason could be the federal government requiring drivers to obtain their Commercial Drivers License through standardized training, Entry-Level Driver Training (ELDT), which the government enforced in 2022.
The training, combined with the unconventional work schedule and job pressure, has complicated the recruiting process.
“The job posting has been on our website since two years ago that we are in need of bus drivers and sub-bus drivers,” said Buck.
Buck is actively looking for drivers willing to learn. She has connections to a trainer who can help driver candidates obtain their CDL.
“If somebody's got the time to do the training and put the work in, we'll all work with them and we'll get them trained,” she said.
