Milwaukee City Wire

The shortage of bus drivers for Milwaukee Public Schools is so dire that parents may be paid to drive their own children to school.

During its Oct. 5 meeting, the school district’s budget committee passed an amendment allocating $500,000 of federal relief money to pay parents to drive their children. No details are available yet.

"So we hear you and our families and we want you to stay with the MPS. And if this is a token to say, if some parents can't get their children to school, to give them some kind of stipend to say 'thank you and thank you for wavering through with us,'" Sequanna Taylor, Third District board director, said, KOAA reported.

At the start of the 2021-2022 school year, the school district said it was short by approximately 50 school bus drivers, WISN said. Consideration was given to handing out Milwaukee County transit passes to some students to take city buses to school.

First Student, the school district’s largest transit provider, wants to hire 100 drivers. Andrew Peterson, a general manager for First Student, told WISN that 95% of bus driver companies across the country are hiring. Drivers can be hired with no previous experience, get trained in a matter of days, receive a $1,000 signing bonus and start at $19 to $20 an hour.

The school district also sought help from the National Guard to drive buses.

Taylor and Megan O’Halloran, Eighth District director, cosponsored the parent stipend amendment. O’Halloran said the money is intended for gas for personal vehicles or bus passes, TMJ4 said.

Students have been forced to wait for buses that are either consistently late or might not show up. Between 400 and 2,000 students are affected daily, TMJ4 said.