JACKSONVILLE, Fla — Tuesday marked the first day of school for students attending Duval County Public Schools.
Kids get out at 3 p.m. but some parents say their children didn’t get dropped off by their school bus until two or three hours later.
“Y'all are responsible for our children eight hours a day between the schools and the buses. Y'all we’re responsible for making sure they got where they needed to be safely and promptly," said Rebecca Emry, whose son attends Waterleaf Elementary.
Emry's 8-year-old son has autism. She said she panicked when her son’s bus didn’t show up at its normal time.
“My son's disabled and if he got dropped off at the wrong place, he wouldn’t know how to get home," Emry said. "He wouldn’t know how to reach me. He doesn’t know our new address very well yet."
Emry said she called the school many times and didn’t receive a response.
A similar situation happened with Lori-Ann Helgeson. One of her sons is a seventh-grader at Fort Caroline Middle School and the bus dropped him off after 7 p.m.
“When he wasn’t texting back," said Helgeson. "I’m like hello what’s going on mom needs to know what’s going on but had I not had a phone with him, I would’ve been just beside myself."
Student Transportation of America who has been partners with DCPS since 2009 sent a statement to First Coast News saying:
"Due to unforeseen pandemic challenges that exacerbated an existing industry-wide driver shortage, including many unanticipated retirements and a limited applicant pool of new recruits, STA is currently experiencing a shortage of eligible bus drivers for the 2021-2022 school year."
“I understand that there’s shortages," said Helgeson. "I'm patient and understanding of that but just keep us in the loop with some communication that’s the biggest thing,”
STA says they made significant investments in recruiting people and are actively training and hiring new bus drives to resolve the staffing shortage.