Pasco Schools launches incentives to solve bus driver shortage as students arrive late for class
Solutions to Pasco bus driver shortage
Bus drivers get children to school and back safely every day during the week, but they are in short supply in Pasco County. FOX 13's Briona Arradondo reports.
LAND O' LAKES, Fla. - Bus drivers get children to school and back safely every day during the week, but they are in short supply in Pasco County.
What we know:
School bus drivers play an important part in a student’s day, getting them to and from school. But in Pasco County, there aren’t enough of them.
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"We started the year with about 60 open bus routes. We’re now down to about 45 open bus routes, but we need to get that to zero," said John Legg, Ph. D, the superintendent of Pasco County Schools.
Legg said about 20% of their bus routes are not filled, and that means the bus drivers they have are picking up the slack.
"First, we have relief bus drivers, so we have about 28 relief bus drivers. Those are basically back-up bus drivers that we can send out to fill those spots," said Legg. "So they go in and fill those spots, if there’s still open routes."
Dig deeper:
The lack of bus drivers running routes can become a domino effect, making some students late for school anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes, Legg said.
So, the Pasco County school board heard details in November on a new initiative launching in January 2026 to use money from those unfilled positions as an incentive program.
"It’s $500 more for our bus drivers who show up at least 90% or more of the days that they’re scheduled to work to incentivize them to be a bus driver and to show up. And then the second is it’s another $250 for them to take on one of the challenging bus routes where there’s not a lot of bus drivers and where we’re having chronic late bus arrivals," said Legg.
Those bonuses will be quarterly for current bus drivers to stick with them and to entice new drivers to join them.
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What's next:
The next recruitment fair for bus drivers is Thursday from 4-6 p.m. at the Pasco County Schools district office in Land O’ Lakes.
Pasco schools said it is the worst bus driver shortage in at least two years. They managed to hire some drivers this fall, taking their openings from 60 at the start of the school year to 45. But Legg said there’s still a long way to go.
The Source: The information in this story from Pasco County Schools was gathered by FOX13’s Briona Arradondo.