Quarantine, Holidays Lead to Bus Driver Shortage at City Schools

The Tuscaloosa City Schools System is encouraging parents to bring their children to school as a high number of bus drivers are absent due to COVID-19 quarantine protocols, the upcoming holidays and other factors.

According to a Facebook post Tuesday, drivers will immediately have to double and triple their routes causing busses to run late and be more crowded than normal.

"There are some absences that are related to quarantine and some that are happening because of the time of the year," Lesley Bruinton, Director of Public Relations at the Tuscaloosa City Schools said. "We are routinely seeking bus drivers and sometimes this happens as a result of not having enough coverage."

The system has 80 student positive cases year-to-date and 43 employee positive cases year-to-date. Of the system's 10,805 students, only two percent were quarantined or in isolation Tuesday and only 3.75 percent of the 1,439 employees were in isolation or quarantine.

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