Hawaii Has A Shortage Of School Bus Drivers, Leaving Some Students Stranded… The shortage follows a warning by a DOE official shortly before the school year began that there was an “alarming influx in driver resignations.”
Heading into the summer, Hawaii Department of Education officials knew they were facing a shortage of school bus drivers in yet another side effect of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Now, well into the first month of the new school year, many parents are feeling the impact since their kids are unable to get to and from school after routes were condensed to accommodate the shortage.
“It’s kind of vital,” Kelly Jones, a single parent who works at The Queen’s Medical Center and is herself a student at Kapiolani Community College, said of bus transportation for her daughter, a ninth grader at Kapolei High. “She has to get to school. I’m in a panic, and no one will call me back.”
