Declining birth rates in and of themselves aren’t news. They have been well-publicized for years across the U.S. and Canada. China is even worse off. Throw a dart at a map, and any country you hit is likely experiencing a drop in births. There are many reasons for this, but they are all inconsequential except that they impact education and student transportation.
The National Center on Education Statistics recently published data that projected a decline in overall K-12 public school enrollments through 2030. It does not refer once to falling birth rates, but we know they are central to the issue. (NCES does refer to the effect of dropouts, transfers to and from public schools and state-level migration.)
COVID-19 unsurprisingly resulted in a 2 percent decrease in public school student enrollment. The real eye-opener, according to NCES, is that enrollment decreases will rise 6 percent over the next several school years.
Meanwhile, private charter school enrollment, which spiked during COVID, has “significantly slowed,” according to the Cato Institute. Yet competition remains high for public school bus transportation in states like Ohio, a microcosm for how the issue could affect the rest of the nation. One of several states that requires publicly funded school buses to transport students attending private and charter schools, Ohio’s challenge has been exacerbated over the past several years by a dramatic expansion in the enrollment of private school students, about 90,000 of them.
Not all these students need transportation service, true. Still, local news outlets reported last month that for the second-straight year, many public high school students were left without school bus service because the vehicles were dispatched instead to transport their private and charter school peers. Ohio public school districts are mandated to transport K-8 students to their private or charter schools and offer the same transportation service to private high school students that public high school students receive.
The publication the74million.org reported this summer that 16 states offer public funding for private school tuition to any student in the state. On one hand, this means inevitably more transportation, which theoretically is a good thing. But then factor in one of if not the biggest startup challenges: the school bus driver shortage.
Over the past year, several readers have bristled at the term, “shortage.” One told me the industry is not suffering a driver shortage, or a shortage of any other transportation staff, for that matter. No, instead they said the industry has a retention problem. No wonder with pay, though increased out of necessity, hardly if at all keeping up with inflation and school bus drivers stretched thin over routes with multiple tiers and no rest in between. An issue experienced by many readers but rarely discussed by the media are school bus drivers “calling out” sick when perhaps they aren’t. Everyone needs a mental health day. But in larger and urban school districts, I’m told callouts can run rampant, and the cases aren’t always legitimate. Many drivers are now salaried employees. If they aren’t sick, then what is the real issue?
Maybe they are sick of their job or more aptly sick of the organizational culture. Find another job, one might argue. That is hardly a constructive response to an issue that undermines the very reason student transportation operations exist.
Now, more than ever responsible leadership is fundamental to transportation success. In addition to coaching the operational “X’s and O’s,” provide a pathway to employees that encourage them to stay behind the wheel, at the dispatch desk, or in the maintenance facility. This goes for the transportation leaders, too. What is keeping them in their current role at their current school district, or encouraging them to look elsewhere?
In addition to exploring school startup challenges, this month’s edition shares examples and perspectives of how proper leadership is helping transportation operations not only navigate the many pressures laid out before them but succeed at their missions of delivering students safely and efficiently to school and home again. And having fun while doing it.
I’ve written this before, and I’ll write it again. STN co-founder and Editor and Publisher Emeritus Bill Paul repeatedly would tell me that as long as parents keep making children, there will be a need for the yellow school bus. The iconic vehicle certainly has competition today in many forms, birth rates being just one of them. Don’t let your organizational culture be another.
Editor’s Note: As reprinted from the October 2025 issue of School Transportation News.
Related: (STN Podcast E277) Make the System Better: Safety Leadership Training & D.C. Insider on Disability Supports
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Related: (STN Podcast E279) Encourage, not Discourage: NY Top Transportation Team Talks Work Culture
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