Ukiah Unified School District regrets to announce that we will be suspending Route 14, effective Thursday, April 28th, possibly for the remainder of the school year. 

Routes 12 and 15 have been modified to serve as many of Route 14’s stops as possible. The updated routes will be posted on our website at uusd.net by 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 27th.

Like many school districts throughout the state and country, Ukiah Unified has faced extreme bus driver shortages over the last few years.  If the Transportation Department were fully staffed, we would have 17 bus drivers on our team.  Currently, we have ten drivers and seven vacancies.  We have lost drivers due to retirement, injury/illness, and other opportunities outside the District.  We have not had any substitute bus drivers available in quite some time.  

Ukiah Unified has been proactively trying to recruit new drivers over the past few years.  We have increased the salary for bus drivers, offered additional hours, provided training, and offered hiring bonuses.  We have communicated through various platforms to try to reach as many potential employees as possible.  For 2022-23, Ukiah Unified will be significantly increasing beginning salaries in the hope of attracting more drivers.

We have four routes dedicated to our special needs students.  Legally, these routes cannot be suspended.  Due to the driver shortage, we have consolidated all of our regular home-to-school transportation into seven routes.  We never make the decision to suspend a route lightly and always explore many other options first.  When a route does have to be suspended, we try to suspend the route(s) that will impact the fewest number of students and families. 

If we can reinstate Route 14 at any time during the remainder of the school year, we will communicate that immediately through our usual channels. For more information, please go to uusd.net and click on Bus Information.