TOWN OF BROWNVILLE, New York (WWNY) – Desperate, concerned and stretched thin. That’s how one superintendent describes staffing shortages district-wide. She says if something doesn’t change soon, some kids may not make it to school before the first bell.
“We do currently, out of 18 routes, we have four that are not filled still. That is very problematic to us,” said Barbara Case, superintendent, General Brown Central School District.
Before kids can walk the halls, they need to hop off the bus. A simple concept, but a hard mission to accomplish.
“We might have to announce to families we’re not going to have a particular bus run on time this morning. Kids will come in late, and they’ll leave early to get them to school at all,” said Case.
She says there are short-term solutions for the bus driver shortage at General Brown School District. But, those won’t last forever.
“We’ve had to combine bus runs already; they were ones we could easily combine,” she said.
Case says the state has created a list of people with proper credentials who may be interested in driving buses. But she’ll have to compete with a lot of other districts who are seeing the same issue, including Colton-Pierrepont Central School in St. Lawrence County.
“We’ve been working very hard to kind of use our driver custodians to cover runs whenever possible,” said James Nee, superintendent, Colton-Pierrepont Central School District.
It’s not just bus drivers either. There’s a big need for substitute teachers as well.
“Our goal is to not call a class a study hall, but to actually have instruction, even if a certified teacher is out for that particular day,” said Nee.
“Here at the high school, we’re asking teachers during their prep period, ‘Are you willing to cover,’” said Case.
Smaller districts are finding themselves in similar situations. Sackets Harbor Superintendent Jennifer Gaffney says having to constantly problem-solve has been a heavy weight to carry. And Case agrees.
“We are figuring this out, literally on the fly, what we can do to make it work,” said Case.
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