A community-wide call for more bus drivers for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools last week has resulted in 27 applicants.

But because of the time-consuming process to become a licensed bus driver, none of the applicants will be available when 54,000 students return to school on Monday.

At a transportation update on Tuesday, Tisha Davidson, the executive director of transportation for the school district, said that the district has combined some routes so that there are now 52 buses without drivers compared with 59 last week.

“Does that make us perfect? It does not,” she said. “We are going to have speed bumps in the road as we open this year.”

Combining routes will result in later pick up and drop off times for some students, Davidson said.

Last week, school leaders asked students and their families to be patient as the district deals with a bus driver shortage, an issue that is impacting school districts across the country.

About 17,000 students ride a school bus. Thousands of them are expected to be at least 15 minutes late arriving to school and returning home because of the shortage, Superintendent Tricia McManus said last week.

The school district announced last week a round of signing bonuses for qualified bus drivers and mechanics and bonuses for current bus drivers and mechanics who recruit them.

Potential drivers and mechanics are eligible a $1,000 bonus once they begin work and another $1,000 on Jan. 25. Employees who recruit them are eligible for the same amount.

In addition to a bus-driver shortage, the district has 20 bus mechanics, 11 short of what it needs.

The announcement of the bonuses has stirred interest among qualified bus drivers and mechanics, Davidson said. However, none of the 27 new applicants has a current commercial drivers license, one step in the long process to begin driving a school bus in North Carolina. In some cases, it can take three months for a new applicant to start driving.

Ronald Slade, a bus driver for eight years, said that pay is one reason for the shortage of drivers both locally and across the nation. But there are other reasons as well.

“A lot of people aren’t used to the kids that are growing up today,” Slade said. “They’re not the same as back when I graduated. But dealing with them is the main thing. A lot of them just don’t have that love. It starts at home. If the parent teaches the child how to act when they get on the bus it makes getting to and from school a whole lot easier.”

In the coming weeks, school district leaders plan to present to the school board a proposal to increase the salary of its classified employees, which includes bus drivers and cafeteria workers. The starting salary for someone in a classified position is $15 an hour. The Forsyth County Board of Commission gave $1 million to the school district in its most current budget to address the pay of classified employees. The school also has a few million dollars saved that it plans to put toward the salary adjustment.