As you may know, public school districts across the country are struggling with worker shortages in a number of areas. We have had our own struggles with shortages here in Lapeer. The most obvious to parents are shortages related to bus transportation.

Due to our driver shortage, we have had mechanics and other members of our bus garage staff (including our director of transportation) driving buses on an almost daily basis. This has been going on for many months and it is not sustainable. Given the average age and usage of our fleet, our buses are in dire need of repair and maintenance. Obviously, we cannot meet that challenge if our mechanics and other members of our staff are running the roads.

With that in mind, and as we prepare for the potential of more cancellations this winter, we would like your feedback on how the cancellations are made. Currently, we cancel routes as soon as we determine we are short (generally very early in the morning). Sometimes those calls come too late for some, but we have to make them as they happen. If we have just enough drivers to cover our routes on any given day, and one person calls in sick at 5 a.m., that is going to trigger a cancellation.

Early-morning calls require parents to scramble to make transportation plans for students for the same day, with little time to prepare. Since we know this is a hardship for many, we want to provide a couple more potential options:

Route Cancellation Options

• Same-day early-morning cancellation announcement (current practice)
• Evening-prior cancellations on rotating basis
• Week-long cancellations on rotating basis

None of these options would eliminate the possibility of early-morning calls, but the latter two options would make them far less likely. The cancellations would be done on a rotating basis, spreading them out so as not to unduly burden riders of specific routes.

With all that in mind, please take the following survey to share your feedback.

Note: This survey is only for parents of students who utilize district transportation.

Click here to complete the survey.