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At Hemlock Public School District, we continue to strive to provide the best options and opportunities for students and families. But sometimes, there are limits to our ability to provide continuity of service and programming; recently, we had to temporarily discontinue service to two of our daily transportation routes: bus #12 and #14. 

We understand and appreciate the inconvenience this presents to students and families that rely on this type of service. We never take these types of decisions lightly and have worked to avoid this type of situation as much as possible up to this point.  

When it comes to the wheels on the bus, there is a National and State of Michigan shortage of qualified drivers that has been ongoing for some time. We have been fortunate up to this point to not experience too many of these types of situations because of our recruitment, training, compensation, and retention of quality bus drivers. 

COVID-19 and the pandemic have put a strain on our ability to recruit and train drivers over the last 10 months and has drained our pool of substitutes and made us feel the pinch of this shortage along with the rest of the nation and state. 

There are three types of people reading this: those that do not use our transportation services, second, those that do and were affected by the current disruption of service, and third, those that do and will be affected by future disruptions of service. If you are reading this and this is the most difficult and frustrating thing in your life this week, we are truly sorry.  We are providing synchronous remote instruction for students who cannot attend face-to-face instruction due to this disruption. Please contact your child's building principal to make arrangements.

If you or someone you know might be interested in being a bus driver, please give us a call for more details at 989.642.5282. 

Sincerely, 

Don Killingbeck, Supt.