CMS bus drivers doubling up routes as district tries to fill 100 vacancies

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Students and teachers have started the second week of class for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. CMS says they started this school year with the lowest number of teacher vacancies in recent years. But that’s not the case for bus drivers. The district says there are 100 school bus driver vacancies. They say some drivers are pulling doubles to get kids to and from school.

CMS Chief Operating Officer Tim Ivey says, “We have a hundred vacancies, our current way that we’re filling those is we have more part-time drivers in the morning. So, where families are seeing that double routes are coming in the afternoons where we don’t have as many part-time to fill in those vacancies, causing us to have to essentially run a double route to be able to provide services for everybody”

Officials say morning on-time arrivals on school buses increased from 75% on Tuesday to 91% on Friday.