Student groups struggle to find rides

Bus drivers remain in demand at Weston County School District No. 1, Transportation Director Troy Allen told trustees at the Aug. 27 school board meeting.

Allen said the district started the 2025-26 school year with one less driver compared with last year. The district is also waiting on the resignation of another driver it “is losing” on Aug. 29.

“We’re tighter than we were last year, and last year, we were tight on drivers,” he said. “We keep hoping.”

He said that a few bus drivers are undergoing training, but that will take time and those drivers will “be pretty much” substitute drivers “at this time.”

The time it takes to prepare someone who wants to be a driver to drive buses for the district varies, according to Allen.

“Some people are more comfortable driving a bus,” he said. “Some people are intimidated by the bus.”

For most of the district’s bus drivers, the position is a second job, according to Allen. 

He said one man who works at the Wyoming Honor Conservation Camp is taking bus driver training in spurts; after he works four days at the camp, he has four days off, and he uses that time to go through bus training. Those training sessions have to fit into the department’s schedule of routes, activities and field trips.

The shortage is affecting student activities too as Preslee Fitzwater, the president of the Newcastle Student Council and the Wyoming Association of Student Council’s northeast region representative, explained. She said that because the district has limited bus drivers for routes, the organization can only travel in the district’s Suburban vans for many of the fall events. For example, for its first event, only seven of the 45 student council members can come.

Fitzwater said that it’s unfortunate the council can’t take more people because participation has lagged among both lower classmen and upperclassmen. She asked the school board to encourage people to become bus drivers.

“If you know anybody, please encourage them to come be our bus drivers because — serving on the state board — it looks pretty bad when my council is only seven people,” she pleaded.