![]() But she said that while other areas where the company works have had shortages, those areas haven’t had to cancel routes. “To take her to go to school, it took me about an hour, but what if I was an hour away or I had to go to Boston for the day? She would’ve missed school,” said Hart, who said she felt the district should make a better backup plan for situations like this one.īryony Chamberlain, vice president for school buses with DATTCO, told CT Examiner that the company was trying to recruit more drivers in the middle of what is a national bus driver shortage. She left work, she said, and sped home to get her daughter and drive her to school. ![]() Hart said she called Dattco and was told the bus wasn’t running that day. If you’re late, you don’t get to play sports … she was in a panic.” Jennifer Hart, a single mother whose children go to Mercy High School and John Paul II Elementary, said that her oldest daughter was affected when the bus that her daughter shares with students from Beman Middle School had a route cancellation one morning last month. He said his delays also affect his fellow workers. Perkins works as a truck driver, and he said he had to stop in the middle of his route, turn around, pick up his daughters and drop them off at school, then return to work. “If the bus doesn’t come, it’s a huge problem for us,” said Perkins, who has also run for the Middletown Board of Education in the past. His wife, he said, leaves for her job even earlier than he does. He said it’s not a huge problem when he knows in advance that the bus is going to be late, but once, he said, he didn’t find out until he’d already left for work. “We will work collaboratively with them on these efforts so that our collective goal of serving the students and families of Middletown is fulfilled.”īill Perkins, whose two daughters attend Beman Elementary School, said they’ve been affected by the shortages three times this year. “Guaranteeing that our students and families are not faced with unnecessary challenges of getting to and from school, Middletown Public Schools will continue to assess DATTCO’s performance,” the statement read. The district also plans to offer a commercial drivers license preparation course at Middletown Adult Education. The statement said that DATTCO has agreed to move drivers from other towns with a surplus of drivers to ensure that routes in Middletown are no longer canceled. The 21st Century After School program at Beman was also canceled because of “busing issues” according to messages from the district. ![]() The driver shortage resulted in multiple busing cancellations and delays last week and this week, including the cancellation of bus routes at Snow School, Middletown High School and Beman Middle School on Monday. MIDDLETOWN - The DATTCO bus company is attempted to resolve ongoing driver shortages that have led to a number of school bus route changes and cancellations during the semester, according to a statement released by the school district on Tuesday.
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