Huntley District 158 transportation issues likely to extend into next school year

Huntley Unit School District 158 has struggled to provide transportation to all of its high school students who are currently learning remotely but want to return for in-person learning, and it seems transportation will remain a challenge into the upcoming school year, Superintendent Scott Rowe said.

The state's 50-student capacity limit on buses, combined with a shortage of bus drivers, has left about 180 Huntley High School students and four elementary students in limbo as they want to attend school in person, but are not able to find their own ride and cannot be accommodated by the school, Rowe said in an April 15 school board meeting.

"We still face some of the same transportation challenges," Rowe said at the meeting. "However, our efforts continue."

The district has tried to contract more drivers through a third party busing service but those efforts were unsuccessful as those companies were also feeling the effects of a regional shortage of bus drivers, Rowe said.

District 158 is still in talks about how it will handle the upcoming school year, namely whether it will require all students to be in person, with some exceptions, or whether it will continue to provide a remote learning option for families, Rowe said.

If the district does bring back its entire student body, he said he estimates it will need 10 to 15 more bus drivers to accommodate everyone.

Last fall, several McHenry County school districts reported similar shortages in bus drivers, specifically substitute drivers, despite below-average bus ridership in the era of hybrid learning, the Northwest Herald reported.

Crystal Lake Elementary School District 47 and Crystal Lake-based Community High School District 155 advertised openings for substitute drivers for weeks but attracted very few candidates, a spokeswoman for District 47 said then.

John Benish Jr., president and chief operating officer of Cook-Illinois Corporation, a school transportation contractor serving the region, chalked it up to the decreased job security drivers have felt with rapid transitions between remote, hybrid and in-person learning.

"It's hard to get on unemployment, and it's hard to get off unemployment. ... They come off unemployment, and the schools have to go back to remote," Benish said.

Some districts, such as Woodstock District 200, have pushed past this and have been able to maintain enough drivers to consistently transport students to and from schools.

Part of the reason why their experience is so different from that of District 158 could be because many more parents are driving their students this year than in previous school years, District 200 spokesman Kevin Lyons said.

District 200 and District 158 both hire their bus drivers directly, but District 200 pays drivers a starting wage of $18.02 an hour, 70 cents more than the $17.32 an hour offered by District 158, according to Rowe and Lyons.

When asked if District 158 would consider raising its rates, Rowe said "every option is on the table."

Since District 158 began its push to hire more drivers at the start of last month, he estimated it added about three to five drivers, all of whom are in various stages of the certification and training process.

The district pays for the necessary bus driver certification for anyone with a commercial driver's license who is interested in working with the district, Rowe said.

As the transportation issue persists, District 158 is upping its game, he said in the April 15 meeting.

"You'll begin to see additional levels of recruitment around town with some visuals of buses parked in some common areas and just trying to attract anyone's eye that we have the openings," Rowe said in the meeting. "We're excited about that."

The district will also promote the openings through its social media pages, he said.

Rowe first told the Northwest Herald about the district's struggles with transportation back in March when he said it was the district's largest hurdle to a smooth reopening at all grade levels.

The district prioritized bus space for elementary students, the first grades to return for in-person learning March 15. Junior high and high school students went back April 5.

When a survey was sent out last month, a large number of Huntley High students chose to continue learning remotely with about 40% of the school currently back for in-person learning, he said.

If the 180 students who want to be in person can be provided with transportation in the coming weeks, that percentage would increase. But Rowe said many other students simply opted to stay home, which surprised him.

"They may have gotten into a groove and they are finding some success right now, they don't want to change what's going well for them," Rowe said. "Some don't feel comfortable because, obviously, we still are in a pandemic."

This makes Huntley High School quite the outlier within in the district as the junior high schools hover around 70% and all elementary schools report more than 75% of students have returned for in-person learning, Rowe said.

Rowe's main theory on why so many Huntley High students have opted not to come back is the district's rigid, COVID-19 version of in-person learning looks a lot different from the more flexible, college-style course schedules students grew accustomed to pre-pandemic.

"Our teachers and building administrators at the high school, they really feel that when that flexibility is able to return, so will our students because at home they have that flexibility," he added.

As a whole, about 63% of District 158 students are now back to learning in school buildings.