Until the Toledo School District can either hire more bus drivers or organize with parents to transport their kids to school each day, Toledo schools will remain on a staggered schedule for the 2022-2023 school year.
Toledo Elementary School is currently scheduled to run 8:10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. while Toledo High School will run 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and Toledo Middle School will run 9:10 a.m. to 3:40 p.m.
“Since 2015, we have been combining routes to accommodate the increased ridership and decrease in drivers,” the Toledo School District wrote in a Facebook post last month. “About two years ago, we found that we could no longer do that and we, like many other school districts, went to staggered start times. This allows us to transport half of our riders and then go back out and transport the other half.”
The Toledo School District had several days last year when it had to shift to remote learning due to a lack of available bus drivers.
The students would have been learning remotely longer had parents not organized to transport their students to school independently of the bus system.
Parents have expressed interest in continuing to independently transport their kids if it means all of Toledo’s schools can have the same start time.
The district plans to explore that option with families this month.
“This is a national problem. Every school district is struggling to find drivers. This is not unique to Toledo,” said the school district, adding, “We will continue to look for ways to solve this issue here.”
The district is actively recruiting bus drivers. Contact the district office at 360-864-6325 for more information.
