Noora Hosseinzadeh 

Staff Writer

   As the new school year kicks off, students and parents alike are beginning to face an unexpected challenge – a shortage of bus drivers. This scarcity is nothing new for R.J. Reynolds High School; however, relative to past years, the number of bus drivers in the Forsyth County District has dropped drastically. The lack of drivers has resulted in students consistently arriving to campus late and having to wait an hour for a bus to take them home. 

   “With all transparency, this is the worst I’ve seen because last year was a lot better,” Anthony Grier, Administer of Transportation at R.J. Reynolds, said. “Our students that primarily require transportation are primarily our black or Hispanic students. These students that depend on the bus are arriving as early as 5 a.m. or getting to school late. In the afternoons students have to wait over an hour to go home, despite some students only living four miles away maximum.”

   Despite facing setbacks, the Reynolds Administration of Transportation remains committed to ensuring that students always have the fastest route home. 

   “Some of the steps I have personally taken is that I have all of the supervisors’ cell phone numbers,” Grier said. “I am calling to ensure that the buses that are not covered have coverage and making sure that said coverage is making it to our bus lot.”

   The shortage of bus drivers has led to drivers handling multiple routes daily, resulting in an increased workload for the current staff. All of these setbacks begin to raise a question: Why are so many bus drivers leaving so suddenly?

   “From what I have discussed with other bus drivers, they state that other districts simply pay more,” Grier said. “As an Administrator of Transportation, I make it my conscious goal to support our bus drivers, especially because I used to be a bus driver, and it was a pain. Bus drivers do not feel that they are getting enough support.”

   David Friedman, another Administrator of Transportation at R.J. Reynolds High School, believes the overworking of bus drivers due to the shortage, plays a major role. 

   “Those who take this job and then leave, it’s not always about the pay,” Friedman said. “It’s about them just wanting to have a consistent school because they get bounced around doing all these different kinds of rounds because of the shortage.”

   With the administration doing all they can to cut the wait time and ensure buses arrive on schedule, they begin to turn to students to assist with making a difference. If the student body does not believe that buses provide adequate transportation services, they should take civic action by contacting their state representatives to address the issue and request changes to be made. 

   “At every state level, school level, or district level, there’s a good intention,” Friedman said. “We fall short of meeting the standard of getting students to school on time. At some point, we’ve got to look at what we’re doing and say, ‘We’ve got to do something different’. We can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different outcomes, or else we are saying we are okay with students missing 30 total hours of instruction time of first period every year.”

   In the evolving journey towards bettering our transportation services, one thing is clear: student voices matter. The commitment to providing students with dependable bus services is a shared endeavor where administrators and students must collaborate. So, as the school moves forward, students shouldn’t only demand better but actively engage with state representatives to ensure that every journey to school is a smooth and punctual one.