Pa. Departments Of Education And Transportation Working To Address Bus Driver Shortage

HARRISBURG (KDKA) - The search for school bus drivers continues and the Wolf Administration is pushing full-speed ahead to address the shortage impacting student and their parents across Pennsylvania.

Right now, there are roughly 42,000 school bus drives which is the lowest number of licensed CDL school bus drivers in the past five years.

Pennsylvania is taking a more hands-on approach to recruiting drivers.

In recent weeks, both the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Department of Education has been conducting various forms of outreach to connect with potential drivers.

Letters were sent to more than 376,000 people with a commercial driver's license.

The letters included a survey asking those drivers if they would be interested in pursuing a career in driving school buses.

Those interested will be contacted by local schools to discuss the next steps.

"Our students need reliable transportation to be able to continue in-person instruction, our parents need peace of mind, and our schools need assistance," said Pennsylvania Department of Education Secretary Noe Ortega.

So far, about 1,300 drivers have volunteered to drive through the survey.

There are still many more seats that need to be filled to address both immediate and long-term needs.