ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Dozens of school bus routes were canceled last week in the Mat-Su Borough School District due to a shortage of drivers.
According to the district, some of its routes were canceled on Thursday and Friday last week due to a staffing shortage with Durham School Services, its bus contractor. The district has been in contract with Durham School Services since 2022, when it was awarded a nearly $200 million contract.
“The cancellations resulted from driver absences without a sufficient standby driver workforce to cover,” district spokesperson John Notestine said. “Fortunately, we have drivers returning to employment over the next couple of weeks and new drivers completing training.”
According to the district, it operates 550 route segments per day. The district explained that a segment is one full run that the bus completes for a group of students.
The cancellation over the past two days resulted in around 42 segment cancellations.
“With both parents in this economy, both people have to work,” Jorge Osorio, a parent to a sixth-grader in the district, said when asked about the impacts the cancellations had.
“If her mom had not been off work that day, she would have not been able to go to school that day.”
According to Osorio, his family was alerted that their daughter’s bus route was canceled around a few hours before to the scheduled school bus pick-up time. Late cancellations like that make it difficult for households who are juggling work and getting their students to and from school, Osorio said, resulting in families losing time at work and income.
“It’s tough to balance life, work, you know, family. All of that stuff,” Osorio said. “When an agency you depend on, you know that’s supposed to have the best bid … that they are kind of failing to do their part in this thing.
“They are, you know, just kind of not living up to what they need to do.”
According to the district, the cancellations impacted less than 4% of its routes.
On Monday, there were no further cancellations.
According to Durham School Services, the shortage was due to several factors, including leaves of absence and call-offs.
“We anticipate this shortage to be resolved soon once drivers start returning,” Durham School Services told Alaska’s News Source via a statement. “We also have a healthy applicant and training pipeline which we are confident will help ease this temporary driver shortage and remain diligent and dedicated in our efforts in continuing to strengthen our driver workforce.”
Osorio told Alaska’s News Source that his family has been facing route cancellations and delays since Durham became contracted through the district.
“They entered upon a contract and as we know, contracts are contracts, and you said you’re going to do certain things and that’s what’s expected,” Osorio said. “The parents are doing their part by getting the kids where they need to be. The school buses need to do their part by being there.”
Back in August 2022, Alaska’s News Source reported that Durham School Services lacked enough bus drivers to run all MSBSD regular education routes. It resulted in the school year starting with bus cancellations.
“… [Durham] shared that they will not have enough bus drivers to run all regular education routes in the core area, due to the national bus driver shortage and competition with tour bus companies,” Dr. Randy Trani, the MSBSD superintendent, told Alaska’s News Source in 2022.
The Anchorage School District faced a similar struggle that same year, starting the school year with a bus driver shortage. The shortage resulted in the district implementing a rotating bus schedule that extended into the fall.
Durham School Services is currently contracted with the district until June 30, 2032. Previously, the Mat-Su district contracted First Student and Laidlaw as its bus service.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
Copyright 2025 KTUU. All rights reserved.
link