Moorhead Area Public Schools overcoming its bus driver shortage
Before classes started last week, Moorhead Area Public Schools pleaded for community support for hiring drivers.
MOORHEAD, Minn. (KVRR) — Before classes started last week, Moorhead Area Public Schools pleaded for community support to hire drivers.
Steve Moore, Executive Director of Operations and Emergency Management, says the beginning of school is always challenging with kids still enrolling and adjusting routes.
“We’ve had to make with all of our adjustments with the shortage of drivers. It’s been a little bit more hectic. All of the routes that we’ve identified that we can handle with the staffing that we have, those are worked out and those are finally running fairly smoothly,” said Moore.
Moore says they serve about 3,800 students throughout seven schools.
They have hired two drivers recently and are looking to hire five more to return things back to normal by November first.
A few parents have expressed concerns in a Facebook about some kids having to cross the highway, railroads or having to cross streets with speed limits up to 55 mph.
Moore says the process has been tough, but they have stuck together to serve the community.
“My staff, my transportation staff have worked tirelessly to make routes more efficient, getting as many kids on as safely as possible, while also keeping that retention piece in mind, where we have to have those drivers who want to come back and drive,” said Moore.
He says he’s proud of his staff they are working around the clock behind the scenes and are exceeding expectations.
“The week before school, we were able to add in all routes back except for five areas in the afternoon routes at Horizon. So, we’ve been able to cover all the Horizon morning routes, but we still have five routes in the afternoon. And then we have two routes morning and afternoon at the high school so we bought back quite a bit,” said Moore.
They have also closed the bus pickup radius from two miles to one mile for students at Horizon middle school.
