Behind School Bus Mess, a 45-Year-Old Contract That’s Hard to Change

Students across New York City are waiting up to an hour for school buses as a driver shortage and conflict over a contract hamstring the city’s ability to find a solution.

Less than a month into the school year, Dawn Akerley has developed a very particular morning routine.

She dashes outside at around 7 a.m., when her son’s school bus is supposed to arrive, to see whether it is waiting at the curb. Usually, it isn’t. She leaves her son, Jace, who is 6 years old and autistic, unattended inside their first-floor apartment in Queens while she repeats this process every 20 minutes until the bus arrives, some days as late as 8:30 a.m.

The bus route originates in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and stretches about 20 miles east to Far Rockaway, Queens, before Jace is picked up in Richmond Hill, a neighborhood 10 miles to the north. The driver bypasses his school and stops at two others before dropping Jace off. Most days, Ms. Akerley said, he does not get to school until 10 a.m. — two hours late.

“It’s so detrimental to his entire day,” she said, adding that Jace had failed his first math test of the year because he was consistently missing class.

Ms. Akerley is just one of many New York City parents whose children use school buses and are not being picked up on time. A broad swath of those parents have children with disabilities or learning differences that require the city to provide a special education plan, which not only guarantees their right to transportation, but also stipulates that they cannot spend more than 90 minutes getting to school.

Students from kindergarten through sixth grade who live over a mile from school are also eligible for bus transportation.