Holland Patent, N.Y. — Holland Patent schools in Oneida County will be closed Monday due to a bus driver shortage, the district announced Sunday.
The Holland Patent Central School District posted a bus driver job opening on Facebook with the following message Sunday afternoon: “URGENT UPDATE! Due to a bus driver shortage, the Holland Patent Central School District will be CLOSED tomorrow, November 29, 2021.”
The district also notified The Post-Standard | syracuse.com that its schools will be closed Monday “due to a bus driver shortage.”
School districts throughout Central New York have repeatedly said they are in dire need of school bus drivers this school year. The Rome City School District, also in Oneida County, went remote briefly at the end of September because too many of its bus drivers were home with the coronavirus. The Syracuse City School District also had busing crisis at the start of the school year, and ended up cutting an hour from the school day to address the problem.
Holland Patent is 12 miles north of Utica and 12 miles east of Rome, between the Mohawk Valley and the foothills of the Adirondack mountains.
The district has roughly 1,500 students, 116 teachers and 106 support staff in four buildings. It was not immediately known how many bus drivers Holland Patent needs to get students to and from school. The district also did not say why they are lacking bus drivers.
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