ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, Md. — We are just a couple weeks away from school starting, and school officials are sweating to see if there will be enough buses to pick children up, or if there will be enough teachers.
School districts across the state are dealing with bus driver and teacher shortages.
School officials have been doing everything to find applicants, from advertising, promoting bonuses and holding job fairs.
But there’s still concern as to whether the wheels on the bus will be going round and round if the public school system doesn't see more applicants for transportation.
Bus driver shortage continues to be an uphill battle for schools across Maryland. “This is an ongoing issue that has plagued school systems like ours and schools systems across the state and across the country really for the last year or so,” said Bob Mosier, Chief Communication Officer for Anne Arundel Public Schools.
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The lack of bus drivers may force parents to find an alternate way of transportation for their children to get to school.
Mosier said the shortage is not only for the school bus drivers but also with CDL licenses.
"That’s part of the problem,” Mosier said. “The other part of the problem is that we are losing drivers as our other school systems to places like Walmart and Amazon who are offering more lucrative packages for their services. That's an issue we've been dealing with.”
This school year, students will get to sleep in as the school board implemented later start times for students. Those time changes forced changes to bus routes and schedules in the county. Click here to find information for your child's bus route and schedule.
MORE: Bus driver shortage won't stop Anne Arundel high schools later start times
Mosier said Anne Arundel County Public Schools has 64 bus driver vacancies.
Baltimore County Public Schools had 110 bus driver vacancies at the end of July.
A Baltimore County school bus driver, who has been transporting children to and from school for more than 21 years, said she is currently looking for another job because driving a school bus isn't making ends meet.
MORE: Impending school bus crisis in Anne Arundel County
“I’m looking for a new jobs, trying try to do something full time with health insurance or better pay,” the driver said.
Those concerns play a role in wanting the career change but she said the main reason for wanting out of driving is discipline.
“One of the issues is the fact that we have no control over any kind of discipline that happens,” the driver said. “Whenever a student misbehaves, we're not able to write up a student and give them a day off the bus. The school system has a hard time with making the rules stick."
The bus driver, who didn’t want to be identified, said this is also a safety issue, stating students sometimes make threats to bus drivers but have no consequences for doing so.
"So parents say it’s not their kids, and that the school, we feel might be afraid of parents. of discipline,” she said. “It’s a safety issue. We're just like afraid to do anything anymore. We have no control of any kind of behavior.”
She said issues like these could be why many are reluctant to take a job like this.
Mosier said Anne Arundel County Public Schools have built in a 10 percent compensation increase into their budget this year to attract more bus drivers but the question still remains if that will be enough to entice those seeking a job.
Some schools can't even send a class schedule out yet because they don't know how many teachers will be in class.
