No school bus driver shortage in Sudbury this year

An ongoing shortage of school bus drivers in Sudbury has been addressed thanks to people like Marc Taillefer.

Taillefer, an educator in Sudbury for more than three decades, is preparing for his first year as a school bus driver.

“I taught music at Lo-Ellen for 34 years and I retired in June," he told CTV News.

"I was looking for a little something to keep me busy and also I had a couple of students last year that lived in Massey and they missed four, five maybe six days of school because they didn’t have a bus. So there was definitely a need.”

A driver shortage and constant sick calls were to blame for multiple bus cancellations last year in the city, but it's something officials are hoping won't be an issue this year.

“I’m happy to say that at this moment -- and I have to say just this moment -- we’re good with our drivers,” said Renée Boucher, Sudbury Student Services Consortium executive director.

"So all of our school bus operators have enough drivers to cover all of their runs and they also have spare drivers to help so for sickness or anything else."

There are 390 school bus routes in the city and Boucher estimates there are 450 drivers in total right now.

“What we often see as school starts, and after a week or two, some drivers decide that it's not something that they want to continue full time," she said.

"So we are really hoping that all of our drivers remain.”

She said the easing of COVID-19 protocols should also help.

“It used to be 10 days isolation went down to five days and now they’re just asking that we remain home if we are sick and once we don’t have any symptoms we can go back," Boucher said.

"Of course, we will continue providing masks to our drivers so hopefully that will help getting drivers back behind the wheel of a school bus.”

Boucher said everyone should expect delays the first few days of school as everyone gets back into a routine.

For more busing information, click here.