School buses are parked at the Anchorage School District transportation center on Friday, Aug. 12. Due to a driver shortage, school bus service will be provided on a three-weeks-on, six-weeks-off basis.
Parents are scrambling to organize carpools, find alternative transportation, set up child care or rearrange their workdays, and some are even considering homeschooling to make things work. “I am very stressed and my daughter is very stressed, but we just kind of figured, what’s gonna happen is gonna happen,” Pritchard said. “I can’t get angry about it because it’s not anybody’s fault.”ASD is one of three Southcentral Alaska school districts experiencing school bus service issues this school year, though the Anchorage driver shortage has led to the most widespread route suspensions so far.
“I recognize the level of frustration and pain felt by the many members of our community as a result of the bus driver shortage,” Bryantt said during a Tuesday school board meeting. In an email to South High School families obtained by the Daily News, the district announced it would reinstate bus services to students who live in Girdwood, Bird and Indian, who previously faced a 30-mile commute into school on the Seward Highway each day.