School bus driver shortage's lingering effect: Longer days for student athletes:
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"Sarah Murphy, a senior at Newfield High School in Selden, heard that bus pickups used to be hours earlier to take student athletes like her to play in games at other schools.
Under that schedule, the buses departed about 2:15 p.m., the games were earlier, and everyone would get home sooner.
Almost everyone preferred it: the students, their coaches, referees and school administrators like Joseph Mercado, director of physical education, health and athletics at Middle Country Central School District, which includes Murphy's high school.
“We have no students in the high school that even remember those 2:15 buses,” Mercado said, recalling the pre-pandemic days. Students got home earlier so “they got more sleep … they had more time to do their schoolwork, and their day was much more linear.”
In the past few years, pickups for games have been delayed to 4 or 4:30 p.m.; games start and end later, and the homework squeeze on student athletes has tightened. It all can be traced a shortage of school bus drivers, district officials said.
Schools prioritize getting students to and from school — in many cases on buses that are more crowded than before — so charter trips for sports have been delayed because drivers need to finish their dismissal routes first. There aren't enough drivers to make separate trips to games anymore.
“At this point, people are just resigned to this is how it is,” said Lisa Myers, school transportation administrator at Middle Country. “Nobody's happy with it. Not coaches. Not parents. Not anybody.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office, which recently announced an exemption for a commercial driver's license road test that began earlier this month, noted that school bus drivers are “desperately needed" in the state. On Long Island, the shortage-induced delays are systemic, even though needs vary depending on districts, athletic officials said.
“It’s affecting everybody,” said Tom Combs, executive director for Section XI, which governs Suffolk scholastic sports.
Shortage worsened during pandemic
Even before the pandemic struck, industry officials and drivers noted the labor shortfall, citing low pay, insufficient benefits, limited hours spread over split shifts, and competitive alternatives like delivery jobs.
That shortage worsened during the pandemic, leading to widespread delays and at times no-shows when schools reopened in the fall of 2021. While the severity has lessened, bus companies still don’t have enough drivers to cover athletic and field trips like they used to, transportation officials said.
Overall, things have improved, said John Corrado, president of Suffolk Transportation Service, which buses students in 22 Suffolk school districts including Middle Country. “I would say it gets a little better every single month,” he said, noting the goal is to have enough drivers so students could again be taken to games or field trips during peak hours and without time restrictions.
Field trips in Middle Country, for example, are limited to between 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., between arrival and dismissal periods, district officials said. Such arrangements have cut down on their number.
And, buses that take students to and from school each day are more crammed than before.
The Lawrence School District has contracted with five bus companies instead of what used to be one and consolidated routes so fewer buses are needed, officials said. That means each bus has more students.
“Our buses are fuller than they've been in the past,” said Jeremy Feder, assistant superintendent for business and operations at the district. “We really maximize the bus runs.”
Middle Country uses a similar strategy. Myers said behavioral issues tend to arise when students are seated close together, making it harder for the lone driver to supervise.
For most routes, she has 25 or more kindergartners on a bus when the ideal number is 20 or fewer. For elementary schoolchildren in grades one through five, a bus carries 40 to 55 students when she would prefer it to be fewer than 40.
“It’s easier to manage fewer students when you can't look at them the whole time,” she said. “They're just better behaved when there are fewer of them.”
Squeezing in homework
Since the pandemic, Section VIII, which governs Nassau athletics, and Section XI, have scheduled a later start time for most games. Competitions that used to begin at 4 p.m. have been pushed to 5 p.m. or later.
Even with a later start, some schools still can't make it on time, said Pat Pizzarelli, executive director for Section VIII.
“If it's a home game, they're not playing until 5 o'clock, or if it's a varsity game, it could be later,” Pizzarelli said. “They have to wait around, hopefully they do their homework, or go home and come back.”
Beginning Jan. 10, school bus driver applicants could skip the road test's “under the hood” component, where they need to identify the parts in the engine compartment and know how they work. This came under a new federal exemption that the state Department of Motor Vehicles has implemented to support Hochul’s initiative to address the shortage, the DMV said.
The waiver, however, expires in November and comes with some restrictions.
“The road test is a little simpler,” said Corrado, with Suffolk Transportation Service. “It’s a little soon to tell who's going to be interested in that and if it makes it easier and helps with the driver shortage.”
As a high school senior, Murphy, the Newfield student who plays basketball, softball and volleyball, said her schedule is easier to manage these days. But she is familiar with getting up early to get ready for long days. At times on game days, she wouldn’t be done until 10 p.m.
“I’d go home, shower, do homework, get everything ready for tomorrow and wake up at 6 a.m. the next day,” the 17-year-old recalled. “It was a little bit inconvenient.”
Mercado, the athletic director in Murphy’s district, said some athletes spend the two hours in between dismissal and pickup in the cafeteria, or on gym bleachers, to do their homework.
"I want to get them home so they could do their homework,” he said. “That’s the bottom line.”
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