School bus driver shortage impacts routes in Carter County

CARTER COUNTY, Ky. (WSAZ) - Parents like Candi Fields will tell you -- before her children graduated from school, she could always count on the school bus pulling up to take them to and from classes.

“It’s supposed to be a provided way to school,” Fields said.

Transportation, which a lot of parents depend on, is not reliable anymore.

A shortage of school bus drivers impacts school districts all across our country, with several in our region.

Carter County Schools had to drop multiple routes this week, because they don’t have enough substitute bus drivers available to take the wheel.

The school district says the route cancellations impact students at Prichard Elementary, East Carter Middle, and East Carter high schools -- as well as Tygart Creek Elementary, West Carter Middle and West Carter high schools.

According to Superintendent Paul Green, canceling bus routes is the last resort, because he understands the toll it takes on parents.

While the district works to train and potentially hire new drivers, Green says if they have to cancel routes again in the future, due to a lack of substitute bus drivers. He said they’ll make adjustments to make sure the same group of routes are not getting impacted over and over.

Green says the district hopes to have everything back to normal by the time everyone comes back from break.

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